


Molly's Place

by PyrrhaIphis



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: 1980s language and attitudes, Getting Together, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, M/M, Post-Canon, Sneaking Around, The infamous foul mouth of Curt Wild
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:15:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27980628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyrrhaIphis/pseuds/PyrrhaIphis
Summary: After a dream of finding long-delayed bliss with Curt Wild, Arthur Stuart makes up his mind to go searching for him, rather than merely waiting in the hopes of stumbling across him.  When he does find him, however, Curt is reluctant to meet with him except in an out-of-the-way establishment called "Molly's Place"...  (A summary that, like the title, ceases to apply about halfway in...)(The fic is fully written and edited, but as my fic writing has slowed to almost non-existence due to focusing on original works, I will be drawing out the posting by only posting one chapter a week, instead of my usual one or two every other day.)
Relationships: Arthur Stuart/Curt Wild
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, please let me know if any inappropriate Americanisms pop up in any British character's dialog or POV.

Arthur was only just making his morning cup when his nephew finally came home. It was, frankly, a little worrying to think that the teenage boy under his care had spent all night out, but…well, Arthur had done the same thing at his age. Only when _he_ had gone home at dawn, it had been to a flat full of horny men ten years older than he was who expected him to pay his rent with his arse. Not that Arthur had seen that as a bad thing at the time—it had seemed more like a reward. Still, maybe he should have a talk with the boy. A young man could pick up some nasty diseases these days, if he wasn’t careful…

“Did you ‘ave a nice outing?” Arthur asked, as the boy took a seat at the kitchen table. Not quite the lecture he’d intended.

“Oh, it was brilliant!” A laugh, warm and sweet, so unlike his father’s. “Is that tea? I’d love a cup.”

“Of course.” Arthur got a second cup out of the cabinet, then glanced over his shoulder at his nephew. “Did you stay at the club I recommended?”

The boy sighed. “Don’t be like that, Uncle Arthur. Let me live my life!”

“It’s hardly interfering with your life to ask where you spent your evening.” Arthur aimed a wounded look at the boy. “Don’t confuse me with your father, Tommy. You know I ‘ave no intention of judgin’ you the way Nigel would.”

“Did,” Tommy spat out, with a grimace. Then he let out a deep sigh. “Sorry. It’s—it’s hard to adjust.”

“I understand.” Finding the water was at a boil, Arthur transferred it from the kettle to the teapot, and set it on the tray with the cups. “I’d still like to know how your evening went.” He chuckled as he brought the tray to the table. “Other than apparently quite well.”

The boy nodded. “It was almost perfect.”

“Only almost?”

“Yeah, he only wanted to talk.” A deep, mournful sigh. “Don’t know if I’ll ever have a chance with a man like that again!”

“I know the feeling.” Arthur poured his nephew a cup of tea before pouring his own. Though most of the truly exceptional men Arthur had known had wanted more than just talking, even if they had only wanted it for one night. “Did you meet him at the club?”

“That club was dead, Uncle Arthur,” Tommy laughed. “I was only there maybe ten minutes. Just long enough to meet some guys who knew where the real action is.”

“Ah.” Arthur took a sip of his tea. “I suppose it’s been a long time since I tried to go out for anything other than a pint.” Which he usually got at the pub nearest the office, so none of his co-workers would figure out the truth about him. “But you weren’t able to get lucky?”

“I could have!” Tommy was so defensive in his exclamation that he nearly spilled his tea. “I could have! Only I was more interested in the man on stage than in the ones dancing near me.”

Arthur sighed deeply. “I know that feeling all too well. All my best encounters were with musicians.”

“Really? Like, Broadway types?”

Arthur laughed. “Rock, only rock. Guitarists and singers, mostly.”

“Wow. Anyone I’ve heard of?”

“Maybe.” Though Arthur doubted Tommy would believe him even if he told him about that beautiful night on the roof of the Rainbow Theatre back in London. “Were you able to talk to him after he was done performin’?”

Tommy nodded, with a big smile. “Oh, yeah. And he was so sexy! I don’t normally like older men, but…fuck! I’d give anything for a piece of that man.”

“I do know the feeling. Though I’ve always preferred my men a bit older.” Which was part of the reason he didn’t go out much anymore; too many of the men older than Arthur had died of AIDS before the cure was found…

“He was happy to let me buy him a drink, and he seemed really into me at first.” Tommy shook his head. “Kept asking about my accent and what part of England I was from.”

“Oh? Was he not American?”

“No, he was. He said he’s dated a lot of Brits, though.” Tommy laughed, but his smile faded fast. “You’re the real reason I didn’t score, I think,” he added, adjusting Brian Slade’s beautiful green pin on his collar. Arthur had given it to him before he set out last night, to give him a little more sparkle…

“Me? How so?”

“I don’t remember how you came up as a subject,” the boy said, “but I guess I was explaining that after my father kicked me out, I ended up coming to New York to look for you, with only that old Polaroid you sent Gran back in the ‘70s to help me find you.” He shook his head. “But then he wanted to see the picture—maybe because I said you were dressed ridiculously.”

“It was the height of style at the time,” Arthur assured him. The height of glam style, at any rate.

Tommy shrugged. “I still had it on me, so I showed it to him. Only I guess he thought you were better looking at my age than I am.”

Arthur coughed, and looked down at the surface of his tea to avoid looking his nephew in the eye. Objectively, he had to admit that he _had_ been better looking at eighteen than Tommy was, as Tommy looked eerily like his father. But it would have been unspeakably arrogant—not to mention rude—to admit so. “What makes you say that?” he asked, to break the uncomfortable silence.

“He spent the rest of the night just asking me about you. Your name, what you do, where you live, what you did in London in the ‘70s…God, _so_ many questions about what you were doing ten years before I was even born!” Tommy was shaking his head as Arthur looked back up at him.

“Why would he care about that? Surely you weren’t trying to chat up a man my age?”

“No, he’s older than you are. I think he was sort of a big deal back in the ‘70s.”

“Oh? What was his name?”

“Curt Wild.”

Arthur’s heart started beating so frantically that he thought it might explode. “Did he…remember me?”

“You’ve met him?”

“Yes, we…it was a long time ago,” Arthur sighed, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine that he would remember the face of every fan he shagged.” He set his cup down again, finding he lacked interest in it. “You should probably get some rest. Get your strength back in case you want to go out tonight, too.”

After a little more prompting, Tommy agreed to a shower and a bit of a lie down, leaving Arthur alone with his memories. After so many years of doing his best not to think about Curt—again!—what did it mean that his nephew had tried to chat the man up? More importantly, what did it mean that Curt had shown more interest in a photo of Arthur than he had in the teenage boy right in front of him and eager for his cock?

Surely Curt was more interested in a certain lay than the memory of a past one.

And just as surely he wouldn’t still be interested in Arthur _now_. Arthur went to the mirror in the hall and had a look at himself. Admittedly, for 46, he didn’t look bad. Only a hint of gray in his hair, a few ‘smile lines’ around his mouth but no proper wrinkles yet, and his skin was still relatively supple. But he was a mere shadow of what he had been at 19, the ghost of a pretty face that had once tempted older men with no desire for commitment…

Arthur was still pondering his reflection when the phone rang. He answered it without thinking, expecting that it was his editor, calling him in for an important story, despite that it was his day off.

“This picture’s got a lot of memories in it,” a warm, slightly brusque voice said on the other end of the line, causing a stir of warmth in Arthur’s stomach, “but I’m hurt you gave my pin away.”

“I…Curt…?”

“Yeah. Been a while, huh?”

“Seventeen years,” Arthur agreed. Even longer than the last time.

“Yeah, I guess it has been. Bet that kid was barely a twinkle in his old man’s eye last time we talked.”

“He’d ‘ave just been born, actually.” Arthur winced as soon as he spoke. Why the bloody hell was he correcting _Curt Wild_ about anything? It’s not as though he was speaking to one of his juniors at work! “What…um…are you…did you call…for him, or…for me?” He could hardly dare hope, and yet couldn’t stop himself from hoping with all his heart.

“I’m not a paedophile,” Curt said, with a laugh. “I was never gonna fuck that kid. I just didn’t see a reason to pass up free drinks.”

Arthur’s relief released itself as laughter. If he hadn’t been interested in Tommy at all last night, then he could only be calling because he wanted to talk to Arthur!

With that worry erased, Arthur found his mind and his tongue completely loose, and he was suddenly able to converse with a freedom and ease that he had rarely experienced in the past. He and Curt kept talking for over an hour, and when they finally said goodbye, it was only after they had arranged a date for that night.

They went to a fancy club for their date, the sort of place you couldn’t get into without standing on line for hours unless you had released at least five gold records. Curt, of course, had no need to queue, and the bouncers stepped aside at a wave of his hand, letting Curt and Arthur in immediately. It was a beautiful night, capped off with a trip to Curt’s amazing penthouse flat for the most wonderful sex Arthur had experienced in at least ten years, if not the full twenty-seven…

Their relationship passed at break-neck speed, and Arthur found himself moving into Curt’s spacious flat by the time summer began to cool into autumn. And as the weather turned chilly, Arthur found that he was in physical pain whenever Curt wasn’t with him. Maybe that was why he discovered the courage to stop in at a little jeweller’s he knew of and pick out a pair of rings.

After all, it was the twenty-first century now (even if only barely), and it was finally legal for two men to marry, so why _shouldn’t_ they get married?

Arthur knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Curt, and—as the near-constant whinges in his back kept reminding him—there wasn’t as much of the rest of his life remaining as there once was. He didn’t want to waste a second of it! And he knew Curt wanted the same thing. Hadn’t he said, on that first date, that Arthur should have looked him up sooner, rather than pining away in passive silence? Of course Curt wanted to get married just as much as Arthur did. And this time Arthur would be the one taking the initiative. That would just make it even better.

***

It wasn’t clear if the cold or the backache woke him first. The two problems had an unpleasant complementariness to them: the cold was making his whole body shudder, compounding the twinges in his back.

Giving in to the pain at last, Arthur opened his eyes, seeing his dingy basement flat at a curious angle. As his consciousness slowly came down from the delirious joy of his dream, Arthur realised that he had fallen asleep on his desk. Sitting up again, Arthur rubbed the side of his face, hoping there weren’t any imprints on his cheek from the pen that had been in his hand when he had surrendered to drowsiness in the first place.

A simple glance down at the desk told him that his unsuitable sleeping posture had caused him to drool a bit, utterly ruining the rather shite letter to his mum he had started. Just as well: it probably wouldn’t do to admit quite so candidly exactly how little he cared that Nigel was now a father. Still, he couldn’t help being rather bitter that she only seemed to write him to let him know just how perfect—and how bleeding _normal_ —his brother’s life was. Didn’t she care at all about the things Arthur had had to say in his letters about his own life? She could at least show a little interest once in a while, maybe ask a question or two. She’d never even asked for a more recent photograph than the ludicrous Polaroid he had sent her in 1974, snapped by Ray as they were buying Arthur a new outfit to wear to his first Brian Slade concert…

What should have been an idyllic and happy memory soured in his mind, leaving Arthur’s mouth with the bitter tang of blood and disappointment. Turning happiness into disaster and utter ruin was the work of a single moment. Arthur’s own life—particularly in his teenage years—had proven that time and again.

But it had also shown how easily he could find new— _better_ —happiness if he just took the effort to look for it.

Arthur moved aside his soiled letter to look at the letter beneath it. His mother’s hand was slowly growing shaky with age, but it seemed to have firmed up a bit—with pride, no doubt—as she talked about her brand new grandson. “I wish you could see him. Little Tommy is just about the cutest baby I’ve ever seen—except for you. You were such a sweet little thing.”

Tommy. A bitter smirk contorted Arthur’s lips. Somehow, it just seemed appropriate that his prat of a brother would give his son the same name as Brian Slade’s unbearable new persona.

Maybe that had been the most unrealistic part of that whole dream. How could Curt have ever held a pleasant conversation with someone named Tommy?

Curt…if there was one thing the dream had been _right_ about, it was that Curt was hardly going to sit around patiently waiting for Arthur to run into him on the subway or in the streets, and he was even less likely to go looking for him.

If Arthur ever wanted to see him again—if he ever wanted to be with him again—he was going to have to be the one to go looking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to put little hints about it being just a dream all throughout the dream sequence (like there being a cure for AIDS) so it wouldn't be too jarring when it then turned out to be a dream...which I then rendered entirely moot by putting the dream in the summary. :p
> 
> I had been putting off posting this one because the simple summary of its full plot is very similar to another fic I posted earlier (though this one is much better, imho), but as I was looking over my unposted fics to see if there was anything I wanted to post, I noticed that the dream sequence opening specifically calls out that Arthur is 46, and since Christian Bale is currently 46 (for about another month, anyway), I figured maybe now was the time to post it! ;)


	2. Chapter 2

If there was anyone who knew where to find a rock star in New York City, it was Derek Stanco, host of a trashy gossip programme that aired in the small hours of the morning on one of the city’s less popular radio stations. He spent much of his on-air time talking up his fondness for the female form, but in person he was spectacularly fast to fall for a good-looking man, or any man at all, really. It had taken about five minutes from the moment Arthur first smiled at him for Derek to drag him into the alley behind the club, where they were both very nearly arrested for nudity and indecent conduct. After a disaster like that, Arthur should never have had anything else to do with the man, but they’d met up at least half a dozen times for a quick shag, though at least after that first encounter they’d had the sense to keep it behind locked doors.

It had, at this point, been about a year since they last spoke, but Arthur doubted that would matter much. Speaking had never been an important part of their relationship, after all. If the word ‘relationship’ could in any way be applied to what had passed between them.

Most nights, Derek could be found getting pissed at the bar nearest the station. (It was very rare that he went on the air sober, but as he had no particular listeners, no one seemed to care.) If there were other patrons in the bar, there was the potential for disaster, but Arthur doubted the bar was going to be populous at midnight on a Wednesday; he was sure they would be completely alone.

Technically, he was wrong. There was—of course—the bartender, as well as one other patron, a pathetic-looking fellow slumped over the bar in much the same position Arthur had found himself slumped over his letter. Bartenders were usually a discreet lot, and anything an unconscious man could absorb through the pores of his skin he was welcome to.

Derek seemed pleased to see Arthur, and immediately ordered them two martinis, before dragging Arthur to a corner table in the back of the establishment. “What brings you here, beautiful?” he asked, with a lecherous grin. “Looking for a quick one? Or maybe a long one? Seems like forever since we’ve fucked.”

Arthur sighed. “I’m sorry. Actually, I was looking for someone.”

“Someone not meaning me,” Derek concluded.

“Someone particular.”

“Who?”

“Curt Wild,” Arthur answered, the name feeling both right and uncomfortably unfamiliar as it passed across his lips. Aside from those few instances at the beginning of the month, Arthur hadn’t spoken that name in years, not since before he left England.

“Why? For a story?”

It would be so easy to lie and say ‘yes.’ No further questions, no arguments, no ugly jealousies. Just a simple, easy-to-digest fiction. But… “No,” Arthur said, shaking his head. “It’s not for a story.”

Derek grimaced. “When did _that_ become your type? Ungroomed junkies are utterly passé, darling.”

“Do you know where I might find him or not?” There was no point in trying to defend Curt against Derek’s accusations. His grooming _did_ leave something to be desired by prim ‘80s sensibilities, and…well, Arthur certainly hoped Curt had defeated his drug problems, but couldn’t be sure that he actually _had_.

“Is there a finder’s fee?” A wicked glimmer danced in Derek’s eyes.

“You know I can’t afford to throw money around,” Arthur said, hoping to shut Derek down before he’d go where he was obviously planning to go.

“Oh, I didn’t want _money_.” Derek pressed two fingers under Arthur’s chin, adjusting his gaze to be straight into Derek’s eyes. “You’ve got plenty of what I’m looking for.”

Arthur pushed his hand away. “Yes, but it’s not on offer at the moment.”

Derek sighed, gulping down an unsettlingly large amount of his martini. “You’d better be planning on using protection, if you’re offering it up to a wreck like _him_.”

“Duly noted. Do you know where he is or not?” Arthur was beginning to wish he’d just started poring over the telephone directory in the hopes of getting lucky.

“I know he’s all washed up. Does that count?”

“If you don’t know, why were you trying to extract a sexual payment from me?” Either Derek had developed an unscrupulous side, or something didn’t add up.

Derek shrugged. “I have no idea where he is right now,” he insisted. “It’s Wednesday.”

Arthur checked his watch. “Thursday, now.”

“Close enough.”

“Fine, then. If you don’t know where he is on Wednesdays or Thursdays, do you know where he is on some other day of the week?”

“It might have come up once or twice on my show,” Derek admitted, finishing off his drink. “Every so often someone shows up to his performances and makes a stink. Good gossip.”

“He’s still performin’…?” Even though Arthur had spent years trying to avoid the very _idea_ of Curt, he was still surprised he didn’t know that.

“He does sets at a run-down little watering hole on Friday nights,” Derek told him. “Are you going to drink that or not?”

“Help yourself,” Arthur said, pushing the drink towards the other man. Martinis were not his favourite drink to begin with, and even less so in the middle of the night. “Where can I find this ‘watering hole’ you’re talkin’ about?”

Derek didn’t answer; he just started downing Arthur’s untouched drink. Rather than simply pushing with words, Arthur took his pad and a pen out of his satchel, and set them on the table in front of Derek. There was something a bit dejected, maybe even mournful, about Derek’s expression as he picked up the pen, but Arthur did his best to ignore it. Derek wasn’t what he was here for.

***

Unlike the bar where Mandy Slade was performing, there was no sign outside to indicate that a treasure like Curt Wild could ever be found within. The bar—which Arthur was fairly certain qualified as a ‘dive’ bar—did have the words “LIVE MUSIC” painted on the front window, but there was nothing to indicate the quality or identity of the performer. The lack of advertisement made him worry that Derek had been having him on, but Arthur went in regardless. If there was any chance Curt was really going to be there, he didn’t want to miss it.

The bar wasn’t full by any means, but the half near the door had more filled seats than empty ones. More importantly, at the back of the bar, Arthur could see a small stage with a drum set and several amps. No name was painted on the drums, but they looked like they were ten to fifteen years old, and they were certainly the right type. No one was sitting anywhere near the stage, as if they knew they didn’t want to get too close.

Undaunted by the other patrons’ distaste, Arthur asked the barman for a beer. Once he had it in hand, he headed towards the back, and took a seat near the stage. He didn’t have a lot of money to throw away on drinks, so he decided he had best drink _very_ slowly, just in case it would be a while yet before the music started.

It was only about ten minutes later that the drummer came out on stage and began checking his instruments. By that time, a few other people were sitting expectantly near the stage, but overall that half of the bar was largely filled only with the sound of the people in the other half talking and laughing.

But Arthur couldn’t bring himself to care about the small audience size: he recognised the drummer as the same drummer who had been part of Curt’s back-up band ever since the ‘70s. Derek hadn’t been pulling his leg.

He was about to see Curt again.

The guitarists came out a few minutes later, plugged their guitars into the amps, and began last minute preparations. Arthur recognised every step of what they were doing—he had seen Ray and Pearl go through the same motions countless times—but he’d never heard of anyone doing it out on stage before. Even at the clubs where the Flaming Creatures used to perform, there had been enough room backstage for them to get ready where the audience couldn’t see them.

The guitarists had finished their preparations for about thirty seconds when a spotlight finally came on, pointed at the stage. Only then did Curt come out to take his place in front of his band. True to his old style, his hair was loose, and he was wearing only a pair of leather trousers. His chest muscles seemed a tiny bit more defined than Arthur remembered, but not significantly.

There was mild applause at Curt’s appearance, and a few sedate cries of appreciation as the music started. Arthur wanted to join in—he had fully _intended_ to do so—but he was once again struck dumb by his own desire. Lust surged through his limbs, and by the time the vocals on the first song started, he was frankly astonished that he had been able to speak at all when they had encountered each other two weeks ago.

Curt’s set was disappointingly short—only about four songs—and to Arthur’s further disappointment, it didn’t include “Gimme Danger.” Curt’s performance seemed much more tame, too, almost rote, a fact that did something to dampen Arthur’s excitement a little. He could understand that it was probably quite hard to get up any enthusiasm to perform for such a small and disinterested audience—though at least a few others had wandered over from the front of the bar during the performance—but seeing Curt only going half-way was disheartening. Not as soul-crushing as learning that Brian Slade had become everything he used to denounce, but still upsetting.

At least the disappointment had given back enough control that Arthur felt competent to approach Curt once the spotlight on the stage went off. A few of the other listeners had already gathered; as Arthur drew near the stage, Curt was signing an autograph for a bloke about Arthur’s age, while a nearby teen or early twenties girl was giggling at him.

“You should, like, put out a tape of your music or something,” she gushed.

Curt laughed bitterly. “It’s already out there,” he assured her, handing the autograph over to the man he’d been signing it for.

“Ooh, really? What’s the name of your band?”

“His name’s Curt Wild!” Arthur exclaimed, though he’d not meant to butt in.

The girl glanced over at Arthur, a puzzled look on her face. “I feel like maybe I’ve heard that name before…?”

Arthur looked over at Curt, worried that he might be insulted by the girl’s complete ignorance. But Curt was staring at the emerald pin fastened to Arthur’s shirt. “So, you’re a fan…” he said after a few long moments of silence, his gaze shifting up to Arthur’s face.

“The biggest,” Arthur blurted, without thinking about it. It couldn’t really be true, not with all the years he had tried to avoid thinking about anyone even remotely associated with his glam years. But no one could feel more for Curt than Arthur did just at the moment, he was sure.

A crooked smile. “That explains a few things.”

Arthur bit his lip, unsure quite what Curt meant by that. “Ah, I was hoping maybe…I could buy you a drink…?”

Curt’s smile vanished, replaced by a widening of his eyes that spoke of panic, or even fear. “I don’t—I’m not really thirsty,” he said, with an uncomfortable cough.

“Oh…uh…yeah…sorry…” What the bloody hell had he been thinking? Had he really expected Curt was going to want to sweep him away to another rooftop somewhere? Life wasn’t a fairy tale…

“But look, uh, if you’re a fan, I could sign you an autograph,” Curt offered, with that same awkward smile he had flashed at Arthur from the doorway of the other bar two weeks ago.

An autograph? What kind of substitute was _that_? “Uh, sure, thanks…” Trying not to let his disappointment show, Arthur fished into the interior pocket of his jacket and retrieved a small notebook. A proper journalist always needed to be ready to jot down notes about a story, after all.

After opening it to a blank page, Arthur handed it to Curt, who started writing in it almost immediately. He seemed to be writing more than just his name, giving Arthur the—undoubtedly vain—hope that he at least remembered their encounter back in ’75. Curt closed the notebook before returning it to Arthur.

As the other fans—listeners—had dissipated by then, Curt left immediately, even while Arthur was still trying to thank him for the unwanted autograph.

Finding himself alone again, Arthur returned to his table. If he left right away, it would be even more obvious to anyone who happened to have seen their exchange that he had been hoping Curt would want him sexually. And Arthur hadn’t spent so many years in an American closet to expose himself that casually now. So he sat down again, and picked up his unfinished beer. As he drank it, he idly opened the notebook and began flipping through it to find Curt’s autograph, wondering what else he had written.

He nearly flipped right past it, because Curt hadn’t written his name at all. “Big Brother is watching,” he had written instead. “Meet me tomorrow night at Molly’s Place. 9:00.”

Arthur’s heart began pounding. It took him several minutes to calm down from the excitement of Curt asking to meet with him to realise that there was more to fear in the message than there necessarily was to be happy about. If Curt wasn’t acting out of unrealistic paranoia, then he was under constant surveillance—which Curt was implying had been set in place by the Reynolds administration itself—and the surveillance was so close that it would have seen them talking. And their conversation would have been displeasing, possibly not to be permitted.

But if Curt was so closely watched, how was meeting him somewhere else going to help matters?

And what in the world was Molly’s Place? Was it a bar? It didn’t really sound like one, but Arthur wasn’t quite sure what else it could be.

He could only hope he’d be able to find out _where_ it was by nine o’clock tomorrow night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was only with great reluctance that I changed the last name of the OC in the first scene of this chapter to something that approached being a normal name. Because from the time I first wrote the scene up until today, his name was Derek Imtootiredtobethinkingupnames. Which is absurd, yes, but I kind of love it anyway. :P (The new name came from me putting "tired" into Google Translate and checking different languages until I found one that I liked. I ended up going with the Italian.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some period-typical language and attitudes that might be offensive to some readers, but I can't really explain what they are without spoiling the chapter's contents. Hopefully they're minor enough that no one will take offense, but I thought I should say *something*. If in doubt, you can skip to the end of the chapter and read the notes at the end (if you don't mind the minor spoiler) to get an idea if it will be upsetting to you.

Finding the address of Molly’s Place hadn’t actually proved too difficult. Whatever it was, it had a listing as a bar in the telephone directory, giving an address and a telephone number and nothing else. The address was not in the greatest of neighbourhoods, but Arthur could hardly pass up the rendezvous Curt had requested just because the neighbourhood was sketchy. Especially considering that the neighbourhood wasn’t _so_ sketchy that Arthur felt worried getting there after dark. Though perhaps he _would_ have worried if the address hadn’t been so very near to a subway station.

As he walked from the station towards the address he’d gotten from the telephone directory, however, Arthur couldn’t help wondering what he was in for. If Curt wanted it as a trysting place, was it a gay bar? If it was, it wasn’t one Arthur was familiar with, so it might have been from the scarier side of New York’s diverse homosexual community. If it was a heavy-duty leather bar, or a club with a bondage theme to it, Arthur wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle it. Not only for itself, but for the sheer disappointment of Curt liking to frequent such establishments. The name didn’t really suggest that kind of place, though. It sounded more like the name of a brothel or a (straight) strip club. A brothel might provide a place to talk privately—if the madam was understanding about giving two men a room together without one of her girls—but a strip club would be entirely pointless as a meeting place, providing no privacy or quiet of any kind.

When he reached the painted wooden sign with neon lights tacked to it like an afterthought, Arthur decided it must be a brothel (barely disguised as a bar) after all: the sign showed a corseted woman in long skirts fluffing her hair with one hand, with the words “Molly’s Place” painted beside her on the sign. The neon arrow—half burnt out—pointed to a door on a grimy building, unremarkable beyond its “Help Wanted” sign. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not by the discovery: it presumably meant that Curt really wanted to _talk_ to him, but it seemed unlikely that the place secretly catered to gay men looking for a discreet place to be alone together.

Actually entering Molly’s Place told Arthur he needed to stop jumping to so many conclusions.

There didn’t seem to be even one woman in the entire room, despite how many dresses he saw before him. The door had barely closed behind Arthur before several men in evening gowns, long wigs and full make-up had converged on him. “Ooh, you’re a handsome fellow,” one of them said. “Looking for a fun evening?”

“Oh, or are you here looking for a job?!” one in a red wig asked, his voice trembling excitedly. “You’d be delicious!”

“What—no, I’m not—I ‘aven’t worn a frock in ten years—I—”

Panic set in, and Arthur burbled nonsense until several of the queens began to drag him through a door labelled “Staff Only.” Within minutes, it felt like he was drowning in a sea of dresses, wigs, giggling falsettos, and sultry baritones. Hands tugged on his clothes, ruffled his hair, turned his face this way and that as men started applying make-up and holding dresses up in front of his chest. The logical part of his brain—the part that had been running his life for so many years now—was screaming at him to shove them away and to get the hell out of there. But there was some doting part that wouldn’t move, some vain leftover of his teenage self that was thrilled at being the centre of so much attention again, the same part that revelled in the memories of the Creatures—and sometimes their mates—all crowding around to give him a make-over or a new, more androgynous look.

Arthur wasn’t sure how long they had been fawning on him before he heard the sound of a warm, familiar voice from behind him. “I shoulda known this would happen.” Arthur looked up, and saw Curt staring at his reflection in the mirror. “That look suits you,” he added, catching Arthur’s eye with a wink. “Not sure if I’m gonna laugh or get a hard-on.”

“Please don’t do either while I look like this,” Arthur begged. By this point, a long wig had been set on his head, he was wearing full make-up, and a woman’s sequined cardigan had been draped across his bare shoulders.

“Oh, is this cutie one of yours?” an older queen—possibly ‘Molly’ himself?—asked, looking at Curt with disappointment.

Curt shrugged. “Yeah, more or less.”

The queens all let out a disappointed sigh. “You should have said something!” one of them reproached Arthur, swatting him in the shoulder. “Letting us think you were one of us, instead of just an ex-glitter boy.”

“Er…sorry…?”

The older queen set a hand on Curt’s shoulder. “You go on and get comfy,” he said. “We’ll send him out to you once he’s cleaned up.”

Curt nodded, and left the room, as the other queens removed the wig and cardigan from Arthur. They’d have removed the make-up, too, but Arthur insisted that he do that himself; he remembered all too well how much it could hurt if someone else did it and made even a small mistake. Once he was back in his shirt, while he paused to make sure that the pin Curt had given him was still in place on his lapel, one of the queens insisted that if Arthur was really a former glitter boy, then he _needed_ to sparkle a little for a tryst with Curt Wild.

Arthur couldn’t possibly resist that, so by the time he emerged back into the main area of Molly’s Place, he was—for the first time in nine years—wearing glitter eye shadow, and had just a hint of sparkly rouge on his cheeks. The make-up in combination with his usual drab attire made him feel an utter fool, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to him. Molly’s Place was not overly crowded—despite that it was Saturday night—but there were at least a dozen patrons sitting at tables across the room, some sitting with each other and others sitting with drag queens who were presumably employees. One queen in a particularly elaborate costume was standing on a small stage, singing what had been a hit song twenty years ago, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to the man. And Arthur didn’t pay any attention to him, either, because as far as he was concerned there was only one singer in the room who mattered, and as soon as Arthur caught sight of him in a corner booth, he stopped caring about anything else in the entire establishment.

When Arthur reached Curt’s table and sat down, he was surprised and pleased to see that one of the queens must have taken him aside, because Curt was now wearing the same heavy eyeliner he used to back at the height of his career in the ‘70s. “You look fantastic,” Arthur couldn’t help saying.

Curt chuckled. “You, too. From the neck up, anyway. Your clothes look like shit.”

Arthur cleared his throat uncomfortably. “These days it’s not a good idea to attract attention.”

“Yeah, I guess not.” Curt shrugged, and took a drink from the pint glass in front of him. “Didn’t know what you’d want,” he added, gesturing to a second pint glass at Arthur’s place. “Thought beer seemed safe.”

Arthur nodded. “It’s fine, thanks.”

Curt nodded, and the table settled into an awkward silence for an uncomfortable few minutes. Then Curt frowned, and looked right into Arthur’s eyes just for a moment or two, before looking away again. “There’s probably no right way to ask this,” he sighed, “so I’m just gonna be blunt. Did I…” He looked back at Arthur’s face, an uneasiness in his eyes. “Back in the ‘70s…did I fuck you?”

Rarely had a question so fully taken Arthur’s breath away. What did Curt mean by that? Arthur felt like he wouldn’t be able to breathe again until he knew. Did Curt remember him? Did Curt utterly and completely _not_ remember, and just assumed that a man Arthur’s age wouldn’t be a fan unless they’d had sex…? “I…uh…yes…once…” Arthur finally managed to say, gasping the words out of his empty lungs.

A small smile spread across Curt’s lips. “So it wasn’t my imagination, then.”

“What wasn’t?”

“Well…” Curt looked back down at his pint with a sigh. “Look, I did a lot of drugs back in the ‘70s. I mean, you have to know that, right?”

Arthur nodded as Curt looked at him again. “Of course. So?”

“So, I don’t really remember a lot of shit that I should. Not well.” Curt shook his head. “Drugs can really fuck with you that way.” He shrugged. “Anyway, when we were talking before—about that pin—I had this image sort of flash through my head, of me and this kid on a rooftop somewhere, right about dawn. I was sure the kid was you, and that’s why I gave you the pin and all, but…” He let out a deep sigh. “I’ve been thinking about it since then, and couldn’t come up with when it was, where it was, or even if it was really you or just a kid that looked kinda like you, and I was sort of wondering if it had really happened, or if it was some kind of warped LSD flashback or something.”

Arthur couldn’t help laughing. “It was February of ’75,” he said. “London. After the Death of Glitter concert.”

Curt bit his lip, looking thoughtful. “That…oh, yeah, okay, I kinda remember the concert. A little.” He shook his head. “I was taking a lot of shit then. Trying to kill the pain without turning back to heroin.” A grimace. “So…was it good?”

“The concert, or the sex?”

“The sex, of course. I already know the concert was good.”

Arthur smiled broadly. “It was magnificent,” he assured Curt. “The best night of my life. You were really…everything you did seemed so deep and intense, as though you were initiating me into some sexual mystery cult.” Arthur cleared his throat, suddenly feeling his cheeks heat in self-conscious embarrassment. “Suppose that sounds stupid,” he admitted.

“Nah, I get what you’re saying.” Something about the smile on Curt’s face looked awkward, as if he was feeling every bit as self-conscious as Arthur was. “That was something I got from Brian.”

“What was?”

“The whole elaborate thing,” Curt said, gesturing with one hand. “Early on, he told me if I was gonna fuck a fan, I should make it a real experience for the fan. Talk to ‘em, figure out what they expect of me, and give it to them in spades.” Curt shook his head as Arthur felt something crumble inside himself. That had all been a routine _act_? Curt had done and said all those things with _every_ fan he had fucked? “I’m surprised I did that with you, though.”

“Why? Did you stop when you broke up with Brian?” Arthur felt a twinge at mentioning the break-up so bluntly, but he did his best to force down any sense of guilt. If Curt was going to rip out his heart like that, then he deserved getting a little pain in return.

“Fuck no,” Curt laughed. “I never started in the first place!” He shook his head. “Tried a couple of times, right after Brian told me about it, with a couple of girls, but it felt so fucking fake. I couldn’t stand it.” Curt looked into Arthur’s eyes and smiled almost shyly. “I must have thought you were something pretty special if I went to all that trouble for you. I wish I could remember it.”

“I…” Arthur wasn’t sure what to say, or even what to think. “I remember it all in perfect detail,” he finally said. “I could tell you exactly what happened.”

Curt smiled. “Sounds good,” he agreed, sliding one hand across the table to clasp Arthur’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Until I was working on the chapters set at Molly's Place, I hadn't realized just how wrong it would feel to refer to drag queens as men, but I just couldn't see any way to rationalize Arthur knowing to refer to them as women while they were actively in drag, since that's not his scene, especially not in the 1980s. (To compensate, I made Curt get it right. Since he's been coming to this place a lot, he's learned the protocol. Or something.)
> 
> (But Arthur has evidently neglected his gay history that he didn't get the bar's name being a reference to the molly houses!)


	4. Chapter 4

As they had hastened into the empty cubicle, Curt had said they were making a mistake. “You’ll be disappointed by how fast it is. You’ll regret it.”

“No matter how quick it’s over, I won’t regret it,” Arthur had assured him. “I promise.”

They had both been right, as it turned out.

Curt had told him while they were still at the table that his normal sexual practice was so desperate for climax that the standard response from his partner was “What, it’s already over?” Knowing that hadn’t stopped either of them getting horny enough to need an emergency trip to the loo to release some mutual pressure. And, as Curt had said, his end was over very quickly: he had already finished long before Arthur was ready to climax. It was disappointingly brief, but then Curt had turned Arthur around in his arms, and kissed him passionately, keeping on kissing him as he jerked Arthur off to a very satisfying orgasm, so Arthur had no regrets. Aside, of course, from the fact that their first encounter had been a mystical experience underneath a starry sky and their second time was in a toilet cubicle in a drag bar. At least it was a very clean restroom. That was some small consolation.

After Arthur had climaxed, they spent a little while longer kissing before returning to their table, where one of the queens brought them each a fresh beer. As Curt was lighting up a cigarette, Arthur tried to think of something to say—anything that wasn’t the dreadfully predictable “I want to see you again.”

Curt exhaled the smoke from a long drag off his cigarette in a deep sigh. “I wish I didn’t have to go through all this just to get laid,” he grumbled.

Arthur bit his lip. “Why _was_ this necessary?” he asked. “Surely if you were being followed, it wouldn’t matter where you went. Or do you think someone plants surveillance cameras in normal bars…?”

Curt laughed. “I wouldn’t put it past ‘em, if they could get the budget for it. Nah, they’re just following me.” He grinned raggedly. “Couple of gorillas in suits. They stand out pretty bad, so I don’t have trouble spotting them, whether I want to or not. But if they see me talking to someone too close or too long, there can be trouble.” His grin faded into a frown. “And that’s always been with normal guys. Can’t imagine the shit they’d pull if they caught me getting cosy with a reporter.” Curt fixed Arthur with a piercing stare. “Especially considering the shit they started after you came around looking for information on Brian. What the fuck did you _do_ with what you learned? They were acting like I’d committed treason.”

Guilt ate at Arthur’s stomach, setting it to trembling. “I—before runnin’ into you in the bar—I may ‘ave said something to Tommy at the stage door…but it wasn’t as though any of the other people who heard me understood what I really meant.” If they had, the story surely would have appeared in print by now.

“Shit. You coulda got yourself killed doing that.” Curt shook his head. “I guess they decided to let it slide when you didn’t keep looking into the story. But they’ll probably kill you if they find out we’re still in contact.”

“Eh…? But…”

“Hey, that’s why we’re meeting _here_ ,” Curt said, gesturing to the bar with his empty hand. “Those fuckers will follow me into most places—regular gay bars, leather bars, strip clubs, they even followed me into a whorehouse once, but the first time I came in here, one of ‘em got as far as the door, turned white as a sheet and ran right back out again. Never came back.” Curt chuckled. “So anytime I meet someone I wanna see, I have ‘em meet me here. As long as you get here well before I do, and wait half an hour or so after I leave, they’ll never know I came here to meet someone. They’ll just think I’ve got a thing for men in dresses.” Another deep, smoky sigh. “Given the way Brian used to dress, I’m sure they thought that anyway.”

“Who _are_ they?” Arthur asked. “Why would they go so far to protect Tommy Stone’s secret?”

Curt shrugged. “They might work for him, they might work for his manager, or they might work for the Committee for Cultural Renewal. All I know is they’re armed and dangerous, and I don’t wanna fuck with them. I really don’t wanna get shot.”

Arthur shuddered at the thought that his actions could have gotten someone killed. Hopefully Curt was overreacting, but what if he wasn’t? “I suppose it’s lucky you found out about this place, then,” he said.

Curt chuckled. “I already had a history with this place.”

“Y-you did…?”

Curt laughed, shaking his head. “You should see the look on your face!” he exclaimed, still laughing. “But dial it back, all right? I don’t have a thing for drag queens, and I never have.”

“Then what ‘history’ could you ‘ave had with it?”

“I used to date one of the employees,” Curt said, with a shrug. “It was back in, I guess it was ’77? No, that can’t be right. ’78, I guess. Well, whenever it was. It was while I was in rehab again, and despite what everyone told me I should do, I was figuring it’d be easier to avoid turning back to drugs if I spent most of my time drunk. So I spent a lot of time buying booze.” Curt let out a sigh, shaking his head. “One night, I was buying more at two, three in the morning, and while I’m picking out a bottle, I see what I think for a minute is a woman approaching me. Only then he talks, and starts saying how he’s a big fan, all that shit. And we get to talking, and he starts coming on to me, and…” Curt laughed. “He was pretty hot as a chick, and I’m willing to try anything once, so I figured why not?”

Arthur felt his brow furrowing in confusion. “How…how would sex with a man in drag be different than sex with any other man?”

Curt shrugged. “Never found out. Unlike some of these girls,” he said, gesturing to the queens in the bar, “he wasn’t working here as a lifestyle thing. He was just slender and pretty, and looked nice in a dress, so he took the job for the money. He looked a lot better as a man than as a woman, though,” Curt added, with a grin. “We dated for a while, and I came to see him at work enough that Marge—she’s the owner—got to know me well enough that when those gorillas started tailing me, she believed me when I explained about why no one should ever talk about what I do in here now.”

Arthur nodded, wondering if he should ask why Curt was referring to men in drag as if they were actually women. “What happened to the boyfriend?” he asked instead.

“Oh, he moved to L.A.,” Curt said. “He’d been doing some daytime TV work in addition to working here nights, but then that led to a small part in a movie. He’s doing TV again now, far as I know, but in L.A. instead of here.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the table, broken only the sound of mild applause as the singer on stage finished a number. The silence was eventually broken by Curt asking what sometimes felt like the question Arthur had heard the most in the past five years: “What made you decide to come to America?”

A depressingly rote question that normally got an equally rote answer. At least in this case it could have details it never could for anyone else. To a stranger or a co-worker Arthur could never mention boyfriends gone mad, and even to fellows he met at gay bars he could never mention the Flaming Creatures or the slow, miserable life they all fell into after the death of glam. Curt could get the full and undiluted story, though Arthur doubted he really wanted it, and certainly didn’t intend to tell it. Despite his intentions—and despite whatever Curt really wanted—he ended up telling the whole tale, mortifying though it was.

Curt shook his head when Arthur finished, grinding out his cigarette into an ashtray on the table. “Sounds like you had it pretty rough.” He let out a grim chuckle. “After Brian pulled that fucking stunt of his, it didn’t take long before all those kids who claimed to be bisexual changed their tunes and had to pick a side. It’s nice to meet one who didn’t go straight.”

Arthur let out a sad sound that was half chuckle and half sigh. “I never even really called myself bisexual, not to speak of.” He shrugged. “When I first met them, the Creatures told me they didn’t believe in the future. They were of the opinion that any sex with women was like surrendering to the future.” He laughed. “Not sure how much of that they meant, and how much was a way of talkin’ around the simple truth of not liking women in the first place.”

“I can see how hanging around those four would have kept you from saying you had any interest in women, even in passing,” Curt agreed, nodding. “Did you, though? Were they stamping out some latent heterosexual desires?”

“Not really.” Arthur tried to keep his face passive. It was easy to get caught up in the self-loathing his family had tried to instil in him. “Maybe there was a time I could ‘ave developed those kind of interests, but…” He shrugged. “It passed me by without me noticing or caring. The only problem I ‘ave with any of it is the fear of my co-workers findin’ out.”

“Yeah.” Curt grimaced. “Every time I was in rehab, every time I’ve ever gone to a meeting of other people shaking an addiction or trying to keep one shook, I always have to keep pretending I’m normal. That bar where I’m playing now? I met the guy who owns the place in rehab. If he had any idea I still fuck men, he’d sure as fuck never let me play there again.”

“So…are you, uh…”

Curt smiled raggedly. “I don’t really consider myself to be gay, if that’s what you’re trying to ask,” he said. “But I don’t really have that much interest in chicks, either. I fucked ‘em once in a while—before I had to skulk around just to get laid—but it never seemed to mean anything.”

Arthur looked at the drag bar around them. It was brightly lit, tidy, and had a classy décor that he honestly wouldn’t have expected. Not at all a bad place to meet with a man—certainly much better than shagging in a grimy alley somewhere—but the idea of getting in and out while tricking armed thugs…maybe ‘skulking’ wasn’t such a bad word choice. “You even ‘ave to do all this when you’re in a serious relationship?” he asked, looking back at Curt.

“I haven’t had any serious relationships since Tommy became a political stooge and forced this on me,” Curt said, shaking his head. “Didn’t have too many before that, either. Not many people want to live in Brian’s shadow…”

“Is it really them who don’t want relationships, or is it you?”

Curt stared at him through wide eyes for a moment, then laughed. “Could be me,” he admitted. “I can’t really imagine anyone wanting to get serious with me now, though.”

“I can,” Arthur assured him, with a bit more passion in his voice than he had intended to put there.

Curt grinned at him. “Even after my disappointing performance just now?”

“After nine years, you were finally inside me again. How could I ever be disappointed by that?”

“Fuck, don’t make me horny again _now_.” Despite his words, Curt slid closer to Arthur in the round booth so that he could reach a hand over to grab Arthur’s thigh under the table.

“I’ll be glad to do it again anytime.”

With a grunt, Curt slid the rest of the way around the booth, turning Arthur’s body slightly so they could kiss. They spent just long enough kissing that Arthur lost all track of time. It might have been only a few minutes—it certainly felt too short when it stopped!—or it might have been hours. “Maybe we _should_ arrange to meet here again,” Curt said when they parted. It was barely more than a whisper, but to Arthur’s ears it was like the singing of angels.


	5. Chapter 5

“No, I’ll handle that,” Arthur said—gently reproving, but also nearly laughing—as he eased Curt’s hand back off his cock.

“Yeah,” Curt agreed, “handle me.” His words were barely more than grunts of pleasure, but they also made Arthur laugh, even as he started his decidedly expert handling.

A momentary burst of pleasure left Curt speechless at the feeling of being jerked off while he was being fucked, but soon he recovered his faculties enough to be able to give instructions, even if they were mostly moans and barked grunts. Maybe he gave too many instructions: after they were finished, while Arthur was disposing of the condom, he chuckled and said “You certainly ‘ave a strong idea of how you want it.”

Curt chuckled, pulling his pants back up before he turned around to look at Arthur. “Everyone does. You’re just too chicken to say so.”

“Chicken?” Arthur repeated, sounding like he was going to laugh.

“Yeah, chicken. C’mon, I’ve been around the block a few times. I know how some guys are. You think if you tell a guy he’s not doing you right, he’ll get disappointed and not want to fuck you anymore.”

“I’ve never thought that,” Arthur insisted. “If I had any complaints about your performance, I’d say so.”

That was total bullshit. Curt had fucked enough fans—and former fans—to know that the ones who were most into him wouldn’t have complained if he’d insisted on taking a dump on their heads. He decided not to call Arthur on it, though; the days when men were lining up to take Curt’s cock had been long gone even before the need to sneak around in a drag bar, and now that those days had settled in, he wasn’t likely to find anyone other than Arthur who was willing to put up with all this shit. Therefore, saying anything to piss him off was a bad idea, if Curt ever wanted to get laid again. “That’s not what I meant,” he said instead. “I wasn’t complaining, I was just telling you how I like it. Or are you gonna claim that I magically know exactly the way you like getting it?”

Arthur shook his head, leaning in to give Curt a passionate kiss. “I normally like it to go a bit slower, but I’d hardly like to interfere with your style just for a thing like that.”

“See? That’s what I was talking about!” Curt insisted. “Chicken!”

“Are you hungry? Is that why you keep talking about food?”

Curt laughed, hard. “Yeah, maybe I am. C’mon, let’s go back out and have something to eat.”

They kissed a few more times before letting themselves out of the privacy of the stall. Not that anyone in Molly’s Place gave a shit about two men kissing—except maybe to delightedly watch it—but there was definitely something better about kissing where no one else could see it. Maybe it was just because the last time Curt had let people watch him kiss another man, the other man had ended up ripping his heart out of his chest. Whatever the reason, it turned out they really had needed the privacy: to Curt’s disgust, one of the bar’s other patrons was standing at a urinal, staring at their stall and jerking off. He must have come in while they going at it and couldn’t hear the door. The sight of the other man seemed to have stopped Arthur in his tracks: Curt practically had to drag him out of the bathroom.

Once they were back in a public area, Arthur’s awkwardly rigid posture relaxed, and Curt stopped tugging, relaxing his grip into one more appropriate for a lover. They didn’t say anything until they were sitting down in their booth again. Curt may have winced a bit at the tenderness as he sat down, but that was no reason for Arthur to laugh at him. “Was I going too hard after all?” he even asked.

“Fuck you,” Curt growled. “The seam of my jeans just rode right up my crack, that’s all. Of course it’s a little tender. I could’ve taken it way harder—fuck, I _told_ you to give it to me harder!”

“That’s why you should wear pants under your trousers,” Arthur sighed.

“They cramp my style,” Curt insisted. “Besides, would you want anything to interfere with the lines of this ass?”

“Definitely not,” Arthur agreed, sliding a hand as close to Curt’s ass as he could while Curt was sitting on it.

“I wish _you_ wouldn’t wear underwear when we meet up,” Curt went on, shaking his head. “Shoving it out of the way is a pain.”

“I really don’t like going without,” Arthur insisted.

Curt sighed. “Can you at least wear boxers instead of briefs? They’re easier to get out of the way. Don’t cling as much.”

Arthur laughed. “All right, if you want.”

Their discussion of undergarments was cut off when Sally came over to see if they wanted more beers. “I think Curt’s feelin’ hungry,” Arthur told her. “We’ll need some snacks.”

Curt sighed. “Yeah, fine. An order of wings,” he specified.

Sally nodded, with a warm smile. As she did so, Curt couldn’t help noticing a few more curves than there used to be. Had she gotten fucking implants? He knew Sally was one of the few queens in the joint who were actually saving up to have a sex change, but…shit, that was hardcore.

That eavesdropping creep came out of the bathroom as Sally was leaving their table, and he cast long, lusting glances in their direction. Gave Curt a cold chill running up and down his spine. Arthur’s face had gone pale, and he was looking anywhere but out at the rest of the room. Curt couldn’t help thinking of some of the stories Arthur had told him about his teen years, when he’d been repeatedly molested by middle-aged men who assumed he’d be okay with it, since “all the teens” were suddenly calling themselves bisexual thanks to Brian. Yeah, Curt could understand where they’d been coming from—the only thing he _could_ remember about their encounter back in ’75 was just how hot Arthur had been as a teenager—but the idea of trying something on an obviously unwilling kid…it had just disgusted him when Arthur had first mentioned it on their second date, but now it made him want a time machine so he could go back and protect the poor kid, since he’d been unable or unwilling to defend himself.

Well, he couldn’t protect the teenage Arthur from his attackers, but Curt could at least keep that pervert away from the Arthur in front of him. “I’ll be right back,” Curt said, then got up and went over to where Marge was talking to the girl behind the bar. “Hey, do you know that guy?” Curt asked, pointing at the man who was currently leering at Arthur.

Marge shook her head. “This is the first time he’s come in. Why? Don’t tell me a stud like you is jealous because a homely man is staring at your boyfriend!”

Curt grimaced. There was no part of that sentence that he liked. “He was listening in on us in the bathroom and using it to jerk off to.”

“It’s hard to blame him for that,” the bartender said in a baritone voice that contrasted with her carefully feminine appearance. “You’re both so handsome!”

“I wouldn’t be complaining if he at least had the decency to be ashamed of it.” God knows Curt had once or twice ended up jerking off after hearing someone going at it in the men’s room, but he had always tried to pretend he wasn’t doing anything of the sort.

“I’d think you’d be used to knowing that men were masturbating over you and your boyfriends,” Marge commented, apparently wanting to drive daggers into Curt’s back, “but I’ll have a word with him.”

By the time Curt had been back at the table for five minutes, Marge had finished her conversation with the creep, and he had left the bar, looking pissed off. Arthur sighed once the man had left. “I do appreciate you were trying to help,” he said, looking at Curt with a less than appreciative expression, “but you may ‘ave just made everything worse.”

“Huh?”

“I know him. He works for a rival paper.”

“Fuck. You coulda _said_ something!” How was Curt supposed to know that sort of thing?

“I didn’t expect you would…I’m sorry. It’s as much my fault—if not more—as it is yours. We just—we’ll just ‘ave to hope he doesn’t do anything rash.”

“Rash?” Curt repeated, feeling a lump form in his stomach. “Like, rash as in going straight to Tommy’s protectors?”

“I doubt he’d ‘ave any idea about them,” Arthur laughed. “I meant something more along the lines of printing gossip about how you’re ‘aving it on with a journalist in the men’s toilet of a drag bar.”

“Hmm…not much better, since they’d still find out, but…at least it’d give us time to flee the country,” Curt mused. “If they didn’t stop us at the border…”

“Are they really _that_ dangerous?”

Curt shrugged. “They were willing to pull a gun on me. I have no idea if it was, you know, _loaded_ or anything. Or if they’d really have shot me with it even if it was. I’m not brave enough to risk finding out.”

Arthur nodded, looking somber. “I’ll go ‘round to his paper first thing tomorrow morning and ‘ave a word with him. It’s late enough now that he’d never be able to get a story in tomorrow’s paper, so it should be all right.”

A deep sigh forced its way through Curt’s lips. Honestly, he knew he should probably be feeling good about their relationship, awkward as it was. They’d been seeing each other for, what, two or three months now? And this was the first discovery scare they’d had. So that was actually a pretty good record. Assuming, of course, that his babysitters really _didn’t_ know about Arthur…

The evening didn’t regain its romance after that conversation, and pretty soon they were making their next date and Curt was leaving the bar. But this time, he did something that until today would have been unthinkable: on leaving the bar, he crossed the street and walked right up to the doorway where those two gorillas were loitering. Once he was facing them, he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, looked them right in the face and said “Got a light?”

The older, even pissier one just glared at him. The younger one pulled a pack of matches out of his pocket, and handed it over to Curt. “What do you go into a place like that for?” he asked, gesturing towards Molly’s Place as Curt lit his cigarette.

“They got a new girl a while back,” Curt answered, before taking a long drag. “Nothing hotter than the sight of a beautiful face, above a nice evening gown with a few curves, and a big hard-on pushing out against the gown,” he said, blowing the smoke into the older goon’s face.

“You’re a freak,” the goon said, choking on the smoke as he did so.

“I’m not the one hanging out in the street all night in a bad neighborhood,” Curt said, with a grin. “If you’re looking for some action, I think the whores usually hang out down that way,” he added, pointing away from the subway station. “But you won’t get many customers in those suits. Most men want to see a bit more skin before they buy.”

The older man reached into his jacket for his gun—just about giving Curt heart failure—but the younger man stopped him. “We’ll keep that in mind,” he said, with a grim smile.

Curt didn’t wait for further attempts at conversation. He headed for the safety of the subway as quickly as he could without letting those guys see how shaken he was. Whatever he had expected to get from that conversation, he was sure he hadn’t gotten it.

What had he been _thinking_ , going to talk to them? Yeah, it sounded like they had no idea about Arthur, but…shit. He could’ve gotten himself killed.

Well, at least he had hopefully reinforced the idea that he was going to Molly’s Place for the queens, not to meet someone normal…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About Arthur's stories of being "repeatedly molested"...or rather, what Curt interpreted as stories of being repeatedly molested. What happened is that Arthur told him the same story of being mildy harrassed (ie that guy who set a hand on his knee in a darkened theater) and Curt took the repetition of the story to mean a repetition of the event, and he dialed it up in its severity because a) that's what would have happened if it had been his life and b) he tends to go big all around. So, no, Arthur was not actually molested, and if he had been, he likely would have done *something* to defend himself, even if that something was just to run away.
> 
> Sorry about the massive time jump. :P I just didn't see much point in actually writing out the in-the-middle stuff, since it would come down to "light conversation and awkward men's room sex" once or twice a week and nothing else. 
> 
> Also, sorry about the final line implying that there's something abnormal about drag queens. It's just...the 1980s, you know?


	6. Chapter 6

Even though he had a story he was supposed to be working on, Arthur found himself entering the headquarters of one of the _Herald_ ’s much larger rivals. So much larger that its building was huge, and Arthur had to ask a receptionist where in the world he was going. That was all kinds of awkward, but what else could he do?

When he finally made his way through the labyrinthine building to find the man he was looking for, Arthur was confronted with a desk covered with back issues, most of them showing photos of Curt. The photos were primarily advertisements and reviews for his records and concerts, but there were also news stories, either about him and Brian, or about several brushes with the law he had had over drugs and indecent exposure. The man sitting at the desk looked up at Arthur with wide eyes. “I’m surprised to see you here,” he commented, even as he gestured towards a nearby empty chair. “Have a seat. It was Arthur, right? Seward or Steward or something?”

“Stuart,” Arthur corrected, as he pulled the chair over to the desk and sat down. “And you’re Jimmy Thomson, yeah? Wrote that shite story about how much good the collaboration between President Reynolds and Tommy Stone had done for this country.”

Thomson shrugged. “Sometimes a little bullshit is necessary to keep working. I’m sure you understand that well enough. I’ve seen the shit you’ve written.”

Unfortunately, Arthur couldn’t really argue with that. That ‘review’ he’d written of the Tommy Stone concert was going to haunt him to the grave, it was so full of crap. “What is all this?” he asked instead, gesturing to the photos of Curt. “Did you go in there looking for a story?”

The smile that crossed Thomson’s face was beyond nervous. “I…ah…” He looked around for a moment, then leaned in closer. “If I tell you the truth, do you promise not to judge me too harshly?”

“It’s hard to judge you any more harshly than I already have.” The man was completely unashamed not only of wanking to someone else’s private sex, but also of leering at them desirously afterwards, as if expecting them ask him to join them in a threesome next time.

“Well…the truth is…I saw you on the subway, and followed you.”

“Me? Not Curt?” Arthur couldn’t imagine it. “Why would you follow _me_?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No.”

Thomson sighed. “Let’s be honest. You and I are both second stringers. We don’t get the good assignments. You don’t because your paper is shit, and I don’t because I’m still low man on the totem pole.”

“The _‘Erald_ is not shit.”

“The thing is, I know that neighbourhood,” Thomson went on, completely ignoring Arthur’s words. “There’s not much there but a few questionable gay bars and a lot of crime.” Thomson smiled uneasily. “Therefore, there were only two things you might have wanted, getting off the subway in a place like that. And I wanted in, either way.”

As Arthur spun that around in his head for a moment and came to the inescapable conclusion that Thomson had followed him because he _fancied_ Arthur, he felt his cheeks heating in a way that they hadn’t in years. “And then you followed us into the loo…?” He was ashamed that he hadn’t noticed Thomson in the bar up until then. “No, wait, if you followed me from the subway, why didn’t you approach me while I was waiting for Curt to arrive?”

“It took me a good ten minutes to get the courage to enter a place like that,” Thomson admitted, with a pathetic little smile. “I like my men manly, not in dresses.”

There was something just _off_ about that claim; if he fancied Arthur, then he couldn’t possibly only go for the ‘manly’ type, as no man Arthur had ever been involved with had even _implied_ that he qualified as ‘manly.’ They usually seemed to find him effeminate, and liked him that way. That last ex-boyfriend in London had gone absolutely spare when Arthur started working out as a way of relieving stress, because he found a bit of manly muscle so unappealing in a sexual partner. “Still, Curt didn’t get there for forty minutes after I did,” Arthur pointed out.

“I needed to drink up more courage before I could try to talk to you. Only then the man behind the bar noticed me looking and told me you were waiting for your boyfriend.” A nervous laugh. “I suppose part of me hoped the boyfriend wasn’t going to show. But there was also…I guess you might call it an investigative itch. I couldn’t help wondering why you and your boyfriend met up in a drag bar so frequently that all the employees knew you by name. And why the boyfriend always shows up late.” He looked over at the newsprint photos of Curt. “I certainly wasn’t expecting you were waiting for someone famous. Though the question of ‘why’ looms larger than ever, given certain things your boyfriend is known for.” Thomson tapped a photo of Curt and Brian kissing, then looked over at Arthur. “I _was_ going to interview you about it before I took anything to print.”

Arthur’s breath caught in his chest at the thought of his relationship with Curt being exposed so widely, and especially by someone who had the gall to talk about it in such a casual manner, particularly after he’d used it for his own sexual gratification.

“So?” Thomson asked, after Arthur failed to produce any words. “Care to go on record, or do you decline to comment?”

Countless terrified ideas ran rampant through Arthur’s brain, but then he smiled, and shook his head. “I’d prefer a more delicate solution,” he said.

“I’m listening.”

“Fact is, Curt isn’t free to do as he pleases anymore,” Arthur said, after glancing around to make sure no one was eavesdropping on them. “He knows a secret about Tommy Stone, something someone wants kept quiet.”

“What secret? Who wants it hushed up?”

Arthur shook his head. “I can’t say.”

“Because you don’t know, or because you’re not allowed to?”

“I don’t know who’s trying to keep him quiet. Curt himself doesn’t know that; he’s seen the men who act as enforcers, but doesn’t know who they work for.” Arthur shrugged. “There’s really only three suspects, if you look at it logically. Tommy Stone, his manager Shannon Hazelbourne, and the Committee for Cultural Renewal. Possibly more than one of them workin’ in tandem.” That seemed to Arthur to be the most likely possibility, certainly.

Thomson nodded, grim-faced, but with an excited sparkle in his eyes. “And the secret?”

“It’s something Curt knows because of his past. I really can’t tell you more than that.” That was as big a hint as Arthur dared to give. “They don’t like him getting close to anyone for any reason, even sex. And with a journalist? They’d never believe we’re meeting socially, not so I could expose that secret.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Thomson asked, a hint of suspicion in his voice. “You can’t expect me to keep it a secret, surely.”

“I’m askin’ you to hold off on it,” Arthur explained, “until…”

“Until what?”

“The danger’s over, one way or another.” Arthur couldn’t contain a grimace. He had lately been thinking he needed to tell all this to _someone_ as a security against disaster, but he had hoped to give it to someone else at the _Herald_. Still, maybe this was for the best… “If Curt or I ever disappear, I want you to print the story so everyone knows what happened to us.”

“And if not?”

“If the time comes that the danger passes, I’ll let you be the one to write the story about Tommy’s secret, instead of doin’ it myself. That’s fair, isn’t it?” More than fair, by a considerable margin.

Thomson nodded, and clutched one of Arthur’s hands with both of his, a gesture that made Arthur a little uncomfortable, considering what the man had been doing with those hands the previous night. “It’ll be my honour,” he gushed. “But what _is_ Tommy Stone’s secret?”

Arthur shook his head. “If I tell you that now, you’ll be at risk. Based on what I’ve already told you, you should be able to figure it out with enough research. But be _very_ careful about it. Don’t do anything that might alert them to the fact that you’re looking for the secret.”

“All right…” Thomson paused, finally letting go of Arthur’s hand. “When you said it was something Curt knows because of his past, did you mean Curt’s past or Tommy’s?”

“Both, actually. But I can’t say any more than that.”

After a moment of awkward silence, Thomson bit his lip. “How will I _know_ if anything happens to you?” he asked. “If there’s any chance the Committee for Cultural Renewal is behind it, I doubt it would be anything so public as murder.”

Arthur couldn’t repress a shudder at the thought of being killed over something so ultimately trivial as Brian Slade having changed his name. “Seems most likely they’d disappear me,” he agreed. “Hopefully only into prison to get information out of me, but…” A deep sigh. “Either way, certainly nothing that would hit the headlines. I think I know the best way for you to find out, though. There’s a bloke in layout at the _‘Erald_ named Chester. He’s an ex of mine, and regularly spends his Saturday nights at a certain gay bar. If you meet up with him, I’m sure he’ll be able to let you know if anything happens to me.”

“Sounds good. Which bar?”

Arthur quickly gave Thomson the name of the bar—would have given the address, only Thomson said he already knew the place—and a description of Chester. Thomson promised to look Chester up on Saturday. From the way he said it, Arthur suspected he was planning on trying to score with him, rather than merely exchange telephone numbers and explaining his interest in Arthur. That was probably the ideal way to handle it, really. Chester could do better, of course, but he’d done worse in the past, so who could know? Maybe what had happened last night had been a blessing in disguise for all of them…


	7. Chapter 7

Curt seemed to be later than usual. Not that he ever arrived exactly when he said he was going to, but Arthur had been waiting at their booth in Molly’s Place for almost an hour before he finally showed up. He didn’t even come straight over to their booth, either. He flashed Arthur a beautiful smile, then went over to the bar to talk to Marge. Only after they’d spoken for several minutes did Curt _finally_ come over to the booth to join Arthur.

“Get up,” he said, instead of sitting down.

“Excuse me?” Arthur replied, without moving. If Curt thought they were going to head straight into the loo to shag without so much as a kiss first, he had a surprise in store.

“Marge is letting us use one of the spare dressing rooms so we can have some proper privacy tonight,” Curt said, with a charming grin that made Arthur melt inside. “So we won’t have anyone listening in on us.”

Arthur smiled as he got to his feet, leaning across the corner of the table to give Curt a brief kiss. “You could ‘ave said _that_ from the start, instead of just barkin’ orders at me.”

“Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.” Curt’s voice was heavy, laced with the same fears it had been back in February, when they had met in those other bars.

Concerned, Arthur followed Curt without another word, wondering grimly if his precautions were going to be needed after all. The dressing room Curt led him to wasn’t like the one Arthur had seen on his first visit to Molly’s Place. That one had been filled with dresses and make-up, with no furniture but a vanity and chair. This one, however, had none of those things. There was only a triptych full-length mirror arranged at roughly 45° angles, and a low fainting couch upholstered in a violet-coloured velvet. It was a beautiful relief from being under the public eye out front—and leagues better than yet another sexual interlude in the men’s toilet—but the sight filled Arthur with an irritation he couldn’t quite hold back. “If this was available, why didn’t we get to use it sooner?”

Curt shrugged. “Never occurred to me to ask, and Marge never offered.” He chuckled grimly. “I had no idea it’d be this nice. Wonder why they don’t use it?” Naturally, Curt walked right over to the mirrors. “Oh, man, I am so gonna fuck you over here,” he said, turning to look at Arthur with a grin. “This is perfect! You can put your hands right here, and—” he turned back to the mirrors to demonstrate the position he wanted Arthur to take.

“Yes, I do get it,” Arthur sighed, sitting down on the fainting couch. “But I’d like to know just what you had on your mind that was so distracting. Does it ‘ave anything to do with why you were so late?”

Curt’s grimace was reflected back at Arthur in all three mirrors. “Yeah.” He joined Arthur on the couch, sliding an arm around him and pulling him in close against his side. “I think I really fucked us over.” After a moment’s uncomfortable pause, Curt explained that he had briefly confronted his ‘babysitters’ outside Molly’s Place last time, and how he feared that they were going to step up their surveillance now.

“What does that mean for us?” Arthur asked, after the story was over. “You think they’re more likely to find out about me?”

“Yeah. It’s probably too dangerous for us to keep meeting like this.”

Something inside Arthur turned cold and rigid. Had Curt chosen to finally have a more romantic setting for their tryst so that their last time together would be more pleasant? Was this his idea of breaking up gracefully?

“But I’ve been thinking,” Curt said, after a long pause in which Arthur couldn’t find any words to express his fears. “The way I see it, we have two options.”

“Oh?” If the choices were break up or keep seeing each other even at the risk of torture and death, Arthur preferred the latter. Back in February, when all he felt for Curt was the ardent admiration of an infatuated fan, Arthur wouldn’t have wanted to flirt with death for his sake, but now? Death seemed preferable to separation.

“Either we stop seeing each other until those guys stop tailing me everywhere, or we do something really crazy.”

“Really crazy?” Arthur repeated. Curt Wild was a man who had dropped his trousers on stage at least a dozen times over the course of the 1970s, used to routinely make elaborate public shows of homosexual affection, and was once recorded going nearly 100 miles an hour down the streets of New York on a motorcycle without a helmet on. What on Earth did such a man think was ‘really crazy’ behaviour?

Curt grinned at him, and gave Arthur a deep, powerful kiss. “Wanna run away together?” he asked afterwards.

“What?” That didn’t sound particularly crazy, especially by the standards Curt had apparently lived his life by.

“Get on a plane and go to Europe without any plans. No return ticket, no job, just us being together and not being tailed by fucking gorillas.”

Arthur smiled. “It sounds lovely, but…how would we live?”

Curt let out a deep sigh. “See? That’s what I meant by ‘crazy.’ Fuck normal life. Just trust that something good’ll happen.”

“Curt, we can’t even get a hotel room without money.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking we’ll be able to stay with my friends in Berlin. I’ve got a lot of them.”

“And how long will that last?” Arthur asked. “I’d love to run away with you—anything to let us ‘ave a normal relationship without all this bloody sneaking around—but I don’t want to end up homeless on the streets of a city where I don’t even speak the language.”

Curt laughed. “Unless he’s left, I know a guy who’s got a fucking mansion. We could live there for years without even running into him. He’d let us stay as long as we want.”

Arthur bit his lip. The idea was sorely tempting…

“There _is_ an English-language newspaper in West Berlin,” Curt sighed. “If you can’t just let go of being an ‘80s stooge, you could get a job there.”

Arthur laughed. “I didn’t realise I had sunk to ‘stooge’ status.”

“You’re part of the establishment now, so yeah.” Curt shrugged. “But you can still turn around and walk away from it.”

“Curt…”

“Don’t come to a decision yet,” Curt said, leaning in for another kiss. “Forget about it for the moment. Let’s just enjoy tonight. You can decide at the end of the evening.”

“That sounds perfect,” Arthur agreed. A quiet, secluded place to talk, snuggling together on a couch, and a place to have a nice shag without anyone’s knee colliding with a toilet…he wanted to enjoy it all to the fullest, without having to worry about the future. Even if only for a little while…

***

Exactly like last week. Half an hour to the minute after Curt Wild’s departure from the drag bar, another man exited the establishment, looking around nervously. Johnson was well hidden in the shadows; the suspect had no chance of seeing him.

As the man began heading towards the subway, Johnson followed him, taking careful note of the man’s appearance. About six feet tall, relatively lightweight for his height. Brown hair, wavy, gelled back. Blue button-down shirt with a bit of green jewelry at the throat. Khaki pants. Approximately thirty years of age. No distinguishing facial scars, no visible tattoos. Nothing that would make the man easily recognizable, aside from the jewelry.

In the subway station, Johnson was able to get closer. On the streets, even unsuspecting individuals were more aware of being followed, but New Yorkers expected subways to be crowded, even in the middle of the night, and were less cautious of people approaching them. A few surreptitious photographs could be taken without anyone noticing.

Rather than continuing to tail the suspect, Johnson took note of which train he got on, then headed to the nearest enforcement office to call his superiors.

“I believe I have positively located the man Curt Wild was meeting with in the drag bar,” he reported. “I have photographs.”

“Will he be easily identified?”

“No, not unless he has a criminal record,” Johnson replied.

“Can you continue pursuit?”

“He already departed on a subway train.” Johnson relayed the line, and the time of the train’s departure. “Another agent could board the train and follow him.”

“Confirmed. Describe the suspect, and another agent will find him.”

***

_“I wanna fuck you in a bed, wake up the next morning holding you tight in my arms.”_

Of everything Curt had said last night, those words were the ones that kept ringing in Arthur’s ears the longest.

Naturally, in the end, he had agreed. How could he have refused? The siren song of Curt Wild was far more powerful than any lure of everyday life. And Arthur was still young, after all. He could wait until he was middle aged and hopeless to return to being like every other lifeless soul on the streets.

Right now, he wanted to live.

With Curt.

***

Monday morning, first thing, Arthur went into Lou’s office. “Something the matter?” the old man asked. “You look pale.”

“Touch of trouble sleeping, I suppose. But, uh, look, Lou, I need some time off.”

“Then there _is_ something wrong?”

“No. Yes. I’m not sure.” Arthur grimaced, trying to right his thoughts. He had planned this out so many times, so many different ways, that now all his plans had become muddled and confused with each other. “My mum called over the weekend, you see, and, well, she said she was feeling poorly. Only she doesn’t usually complain unless things ‘ave gotten really bad, so…”

“So you want to go home and visit her,” Lou completed his excuse for him, saving Arthur several minutes of further verbal disintegration. “That’s understandable. But you won’t be gone too long, will you? I can’t lose a man during an election year.”

A twinge of guilt ran through Arthur, but what could he do? He’d already told Curt he was going to run away to Berlin with him. And a promise to Curt was of far greater value than his meagre career in journalism. “I thought maybe a week…”

“Make it five days,” Lou said. “I can’t spare you longer than that.”

“All right, then. Five days.”

“When do you leave?”

“I called the airlines yesterday, and there’s a flight tomorrow I’m hoping to catch,” Arthur said. If he could get all his preparations done in time…

Lou frowned. “I suppose you’re going to say you need to take today off as well to get ready to leave.”

“At least half the day, yes. But I’ve nearly finished my assignment; I’ll get it polished up before I go, I promise.”

The elderly editor sighed. “All right, then.”

Arthur’s final article for the _Herald_ was not a great work of journalism. It wasn’t even a talented piece of bullshit. It was just an emotionless piece recounting the results of a few polls, and what they meant for the election in November. Nothing that couldn’t be found in every other paper in the city—in the country—and no splendid turns of phrase to let him think maybe he was actually good at this job. Just routine rubbish.

But perhaps that was for the best. Less reason to look back and regret.

As soon as he had turned the story in, Arthur left the office and went straight to his bank. He checked his exact balance with the teller, then withdrew the lot of it. “Are you closing your account with us?” the teller asked.

Arthur shook his head. “No, I just need the money. My mum’s not feelin’ well, and between plane tickets to go see her and next month’s rent, I’ll need every cent I’ve got and then some,” he explained. “Hopefully, my mum’ll pay me back for the plane tickets,” he added, with a weak smile.

The teller smiled back, and counted out his rather meagre funds. “I hope your mother feels better soon,” she said as she handed him the money in a plain paper envelope.

“Thanks.”

The next stop was his landlord’s office. The rent would come due before his five days of ‘vacation’ were over, so if the illusion was to be complete, he’d have to pay it now. Though he really didn’t have the money…

After repeating his story of an ailing mother to be visited, Arthur cleared his throat uncomfortably. “With the price of plane tickets to London, I don’t really ‘ave enough for the rent right now. Could I just pay part of it, and pay the rest when I get back on the third?”

“You’re usually on time, so I suppose I can allow that,” the landlord replied, with a grimace. “If you haven’t paid the rest by the seventh, I’m selling your things. Business is business.”

“Of course.” As Arthur counted out the little he could spare for the pretence at rent, he mentally tried to calculate the value of his computer. Unless he pawned it today, it would be about the only thing left in the flat after tomorrow. It wouldn’t bring much; not enough to be worth the hassle of disassembling it and taking it to the pawn shop. Besides, it wouldn’t look very convincingly like he planned on returning if he sold his computer.

As he packed up his things, Arthur came across the shoe box he used to store letters from home. It served as an excellent reminder that he needed to ring up Ray. The first few minutes of the call were of course wasted in the usual chatter of how long it had been since they last talked. “What’s going on?” Ray asked. “You’re usually not the type for the telephone.”

Arthur sighed. “It’s a long story,” he said, “and I’d rather save it for in person.”

“You’re coming home?”

“It’s only temporary! But yes, I’m on a plane for London tomorrow. I was hopin’ I could stay with you overnight when I get in?”

“You know you can always stay in my bed, love.”

“Not your bed, just your flat.” Arthur did his best not to let his grimace infect his voice. “I’m in a steady relationship right now.”

“Damn. Well, can’t blame me for hoping.”

“Of course not,” Arthur agreed, laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that scene ends sort of abruptly. I find I'm often caught in the trap of "do I just stop now that the point of the scene is concluded or do I let the conversation go on for another thousand or so words until it feels like some kind of actual ending?" (At least in this case it's just the end of a scene, not the end of the whole work. (Which isn't to say that I haven't written a lot of works where the ending is either too abrupt or hopelessly meandering...))


	8. Chapter 8

The flight from New York to London felt interminable. All Arthur could think about the whole time, of course, was his arrival not in London, but in Berlin: he was filled with longing to be reunited with Curt, and to find out just what sort of friend was going to put them up indefinitely. Was he a former lover of Curt’s, and if so, was there going to be jealousy? Would their mysterious host speak English? Was Arthur _really_ going to be able to get a job at an English-language paper in Berlin, despite that he wouldn’t be able to provide any references? Was he even going to _want_ to get a job again?

Once he was finally cleared of customs, Arthur was delighted to see Ray waiting for him. Ray was dressed just as normally as Arthur and all the other people in the airport, but he still gave Arthur a huge hug as soon as they got close to each other, and seemed to want a kiss as well, despite the way everyone was staring. “You _have_ to explain what’s going on!” Ray exclaimed.

“Did something already happen?”

“I’ll say!” Ray shook his head. “Don’t tell me your ‘steady relationship’ is really with Curt Wild!”

Arthur smiled. “He called already?”

“Bloody hell, how do you get that kind of luck?” Ray sighed miserably. “No wonder you spurned _my_ bed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. God knows I’d do the same in your shoes,” Ray chuckled. “Why’s he calling from Berlin, though?”

“Ah, that’s part of the long story.” Arthur glanced around them. No one _seemed_ to be listening, but there _were_ a lot of Americans about, having come off the same plane as he had. “I’ll tell you back at your flat, all right? I need a drink first.”

Once they were at Ray’s rather dingy little flat, it took Arthur a long time to explain everything to Ray’s satisfaction, but once he was finally done, Ray nodded thoughtfully. “Do you have to leave right away?”

“I thought I ought to speak to my mum first,” Arthur said, feeling a twinge of guilt. “So I was thinkin’ of not leaving for Berlin for a few days yet.” It would be a shame to escape American English only to leave proper English behind without so much as taking any time to appreciate the beauty of walking the streets and hearing it all around him.

“Well, you can go up to Manchester tomorrow or the next day,” Ray decided, “but first everyone’s going to want to see you again!”

Despite that he hadn’t been aware of being worried about it, Arthur felt a sense of relief at this news that none of his friends held it against him that he had so suddenly left the country all those years ago. They spent the next hour or so making plans for a grand reunion. By the time they were done, Arthur was thoroughly exhausted, and very ready for bed, but there was something very important he had to do before he could get any well-needed sleep.

“I’ll pay you back for the charges,” Arthur said, offering a sheepish smile to Ray, “but you don’t mind if I make an international call, right?”

“Do I get to listen in while you two spend half the night wanking over the phone?”

Arthur’s whole body felt hot. “That wasn’t why I wanted to call!”

Ray did not look convinced.

“We need to make arrangements. And I’m—I’m sure he’s worried about if I could make it out of the country safely!”

“And once you’ve done that, then you’ll talk sex all night.”

Arthur couldn’t even meet Ray’s gaze. “Probably,” he muttered.

Ray laughed, and patted his shoulder. “Better use the phone in your bedroom, then. I’ll just listen through the door.”

“Please don’t,” Arthur begged, realising that he had no idea if Ray was being serious or just joking around.

Regardless, Ray led him to a small bedroom at the back of the flat—apologising as he did so for the fact that he stored his old instruments in the room—which was a bit tidier than the rest of the flat, but lacked any real sense of character, as there wasn’t really anything in it other than a bed and a couple of guitar cases. Arthur set his suitcase down beside the guitar cases, and took a seat on the bed as Ray shut the door on his way out.

Arthur idly fingered the note on which Ray had written Curt’s Berlin telephone number, wondering if he was doing any of this right, or if he was lousing everything up terribly. Technically, he could still change his mind and return to New York to resume his life there. He’d be turning his back on everything he had ever wanted, but he had done that before…

It was only with some trepidation that he dialled the number on the note. An unfamiliar man’s voice answered. “Ah, I’m trying to reach Curt Wild,” Arthur said. “I, uh, was told—” He didn’t get any further than that before the other man told him to wait, and the sound of receding footsteps just barely came through the line. After a short while that felt like a very long one, more footsteps returned.

“This is Curt Wild.” Even on the long distance line, his voice was unmistakable, and sent the same shiver of excitement spreading through Arthur’s body that seeing him did.

“Curt! It’s Arthur.”

A heavy exhalation, not quite a sigh. “What took you so long?! I was starting to think they got you…”

“I’m sorry. My flight was over-booked, and I ended up bounced to one the next day.” Arthur had not previously been aware that airlines were in the habit of selling more tickets for a flight than they had seats to fill. It did not, to him, seem like a good business practice. “I, uh, unless my mum will give me some money, I don’t ‘ave the money to buy a ticket to Berlin.”

“That’s all right, baby. I’ll buy the ticket, and you can just pick it up at Heathrow. You’re coming out tomorrow, right?”

Arthur bit his lip. “No, Curt, I…I need to go see my mum. And I promised I’d see the rest of the Creatures tomorrow.”

“Fuck! Did you leave America to see _them_ or to be with _me_?!”

“Don’t be melodramatic. Of course I left to be with you. I just want to take a few days first. My mum hasn’t seen me since I ran off to London more than ten years ago. I think I owe her a visit. Besides…if anyone checks my story, I want her to back it up.”

“What story?”

Uncomfortably, Arthur explained what he had forgotten to share before, about the arrangement he had made with Thomson. “I want it to look like they saw to it I’d disappear on my trip. So he’ll go ahead and print up the story.”

“Huh…but they’d stop you on the way out of the country, not after you already got back to England. Besides, they’d be able to check the records and see you’d gone to Berlin,” Curt pointed out.

“Yes, I suppose they would, wouldn’t they?” Proof that Arthur really hadn’t been thinking any of this through as well as he should have—or, in fact, at all—before he set his plans in motion.

“Well, I guess we can at least get around that,” Curt said, in a tone of voice that made Arthur sure he was grinning. “Since you’re not coming right away anyway, I’ll ask around, see if anyone I know here has a private plane or anything, so you can come without having to get a plane ticket. Any government spooks would still be able to track you by your passport and shit, but if it’s just that reporter, he wouldn’t have access to that kind of thing. I think. He’d be less likely to look at immigration reports than just airline records, anyway.”

“That’s true,” Arthur agreed. “But do you really know the kind of people who would own private airplanes?”

“Hey, I was on top of the world last time I was in Berlin. Hung out with the movers and shakers, you know? Besides, there’s this guy in town I used to fuck who’s a pilot. Used to work for the Air Force, but now he’s in private employment.”

“I’m not sure I like the idea of gettin’ a ride with one of your ex-boyfriends.”

Curt laughed. “Now who’s being melodramatic?”

“I’m not bein’—there’s a difference between discomfort and melodrama!”

“If I’m okay with you spending God knows how long staying in an ex’s apartment, you can get a ride from one of my exes,” Curt said, a note of finality in his voice.

“Well, yes, if you put it like that, I suppose I can,” Arthur agreed, with a small, uncomfortable laugh. “He has his own plane, then?”

“No, he works as a pilot for a German company, flying their private jet between Berlin and Munich,” Curt explained. “They’ve got two headquarters buildings or something? I don’t know the details. But he’s in and outta town all the time.”

“Surely he can’t borrow the plane for a flight all the way to England, in that case.”

“Probably not, but maybe he can. Fuck, I don’t know.” Curt laughed uncomfortably. “He’s in town right now, so I’ll talk to him tomorrow and see if he can. He might know someone else who can, even if he can’t. I’ll give you a call tomorrow night, let you know what he says.”

“Sounds good,” Arthur agreed. “Maybe if he _can_ borrow his employer’s plane, you could come to England for a few days before we go to Berlin.”

Curt laughed. “Hey, that sounds good. Your folks still live in the same house they did when you left? We could go in there and fuck in your old bedroom!”

Conflicting thoughts tried to tear Arthur—and his trousers—right in two. The thought of them having sex in his old bedroom was an exhilarating thrill that set his whole body to quivering, but the memory of what his father had caught him doing—not to mention the photo of Curt and Brian that had been the cause of it—set a disquieting chill over the idea. “Probably not a good idea,” Arthur barely managed to say. “God knows what they’re using the room for now.”

“It’s not a shrine to their long lost son?” Curt asked, an almost cruel laugh in his voice.

“Not bloody likely.”

“Or maybe you’re just ashamed of me and don’t want your family to meet me.”

“Curt, the only member of my family who’d even be civil to you is my mum, and I’m not so sure even she’d want to meet you,” Arthur sighed. “My father would—at best—call you the devil.”

“I’ve been called worse.” Curt laughed. “There was this church group in the Bible Belt that tried to stop us from entering their town on our tour. They actually burned Brian in effigy, and for me they had this—”

“Curt, I’m paying Ray back for this call. Let’s not waste it, please!” Hearing a story about the early days of Curt and Brian’s love affair, when they were both flush with new affection, was like torture even in person. But across the Channel and hundreds of miles of countryside, and with Arthur _paying_ for the privilege? Inhuman was what it was.

“Sorry.” An uncomfortable laugh. “Did you want me to meet you in London or in Manchester?”

“I’m not sure there’s any point to making plans like that before you find out if your friend can borrow his employer’s jet.”

Curt chuckled. “There’s lots of options. Private planes can be chartered, if nothing else.”

“That’s insanely expensive!”

“Not for me,” Curt replied proudly. “Just don’t worry about it. Where do you want me to meet you?”

“That’ll depend on timing, I suppose. Ray already arranged for a reunion tomorrow with the rest of the Creatures, and some of my other old friends,” Arthur explained, deciding it was definitely best to pretend the arrangements had been made before he got there, “but we ‘aven’t tried to contact my mum yet. I don’t know when she’ll be available to see me, or even if she _wants_ to see me.”

“Doesn’t she write you letters?”

“Sure, and they’re mostly about my brother.” Arthur sighed. “I don’t know if she actually still cares about me at all, or if she’s just writing for propriety’s sake.”

Curt let out a deep sigh. “And why is it you want to see her again?”

“A sense of guilt, mostly,” Arthur admitted. “But if anyone contacts her about my seeming disappearance, I _do_ want her to know what’s happened to me, and I especially want her story to match the one I told my editor.”

“Yeah, I guess I can see that. But putting off us finally getting to fuck in a bed for _that_?”

Arthur laughed. “Well, do you want to come to London, then? If you get here tomorrow, that won’t be puttin’ anything off.”

“Fuck, that sounds good…” Curt’s words were almost a groan. “That ex you’re staying with, would he mind one more?”

“Seein’ as it’s you, no, he wouldn’t mind at all,” Arthur assured him. “Might ask to join in, though.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I don’t want to share you.” Arthur was sure he was still—would always be—sharing Curt’s heart with the memory of Brian, and that was as much competition as he could comfortably accept. No, it was _more_ competition than he was comfortable with, really.

“I don’t want to share you, either,” Curt replied, a thick warmth in his voice that filled Arthur with desire. “Hey, when I get there, what position do you want to use for our first time in a bed?”

“Face to face,” Arthur said, without hesitation. He wanted to be able to look at Curt’s face while they made love, and not in another mirror.

“That sounds perfect,” Curt agreed. “Then the second time, you can hunker down on the bed to let me fuck you _really_ hard.”

“Or _you_ could be the one ‘hunkering down’ while _I_ fuck _you_ really hard,” Arthur suggested.

“Yeah, oh yeah…” Curt’s words were little more than grunts. “But then I get to fuck your brains out for the third time.”

“Of course,” Arthur agreed. “We ‘ave all the time in the world in front of us. We can try everything we want…”


	9. Chapter 9

Naturally, there had been complications. Stefan hadn’t been able to borrow the company jet, but he had a friend with a helicopter. But it wasn’t ready right away. The delay was so long, in fact, that they had to fly to Manchester, rather than London.

As the helicopter’s whirring blades started to slow down, Curt climbed out and looked around. No sign of Arthur, but there _was_ someone who looked vaguely familiar approaching him, with a big smile on his face.

“Good to see you again!” the man shouted over the sound of the helicopter. “Arthur’s off meeting with his mum!”

Curt had to try not to laugh: whoever this guy was (apart from apparently the ex Arthur had been staying with in London), his accent made ‘Arthur’ almost come out as ‘Arfur.’ It had been a while since Curt had heard an accent like that—though Arthur’s could go that route, too, when he was under a lot of stress—and it just struck him as really funny for some reason. But he managed not to laugh. “Okay,” he said, as the noise of the helicopter started dying out. “You’re, um…”

The other man’s smile faded a bit. “Ray,” he sighed. “Played guitar for the Flaming Creatures? We opened for you several times.”

“Right, right. Sorry. I was pretty fucked up back then.”

Ray sighed. “Weren’t we all?” He shook his head.

“So are we gonna meet Arthur at his house, or at the hotel?” Curt asked, not wanting to talk about the old days for a lot of very obvious reasons.

“He said he’s not going within miles of his old place,” Ray said, shaking his head. “Doesn’t want to run into his father or brother, and I can’t blame him a bit. He and his mum are at the restaurant at the hotel.”

Curt nodded. “Lead the way, then.”

“No bags?”

“Nah. No point.” Curt didn’t plan to spend much time with his clothes on, so they weren’t gonna get dirty enough for him to need more than one set.

Ray shrugged. “Look, before we go anywhere…” He stopped, and frowned, like he was trying to pick just the right words. “How serious are you about Arthur?”

“Why?”

“I don’t want him getting hurt.”

Curt sighed. “He must have told you what we were having to do in New York just to be able to get to fuck once or twice a week.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, how am I supposed to get a grip on the situation when it’s so fucked up? I’m not planning on breaking his heart or anything, but I’m not about to claim I know if I’m really serious or not.”

“Suppose that makes sense,” Ray agreed, sounding a bit reluctant about it. “What kind of place are you making him stay in Berlin, though?”

“Making him?” Curt repeated, laughing. “Trust me, he’s gonna love it. He’ll probably send you a long, gushing letter about how great it is.” Or invite the entire fucking band to come stay with them for a while. There was certainly enough room for them…

Ray kept pestering Curt with questions about this, that and the other the whole trip to the hotel, and by the time they got there, Curt was feeling very annoyed at having to spend time with Arthur’s ex instead of Arthur himself, and wasn’t about to spend any _more_ time with the wrong man, so he didn’t listen when Ray told him they should wait in the lobby. He just marched right on into the restaurant and started looking for Arthur. It took him a few minutes, but soon enough he was headed right for the table where Arthur was sitting with his mother. Fortunately, Arthur was facing Curt’s direction. And he looked even better than usual. Maybe it was the light, or being back in England, or maybe Curt had missed him and that just made it _seem_ like he looked better than usual?

As Curt drew near the table, Arthur noticed him, causing that big, beautiful smile to spread across his lips. Curt couldn’t quite hear what he said to his mother before getting up and hurrying over to Curt. “I’ve missed you, baby,” Curt told him, before pulling him in for a passionate kiss. It seemed crazy to think he could have missed Arthur, considering it had actually been less time than usual since he’d seen him, but the repressed longing their contact had stirred up within him was undeniable.

Arthur cooperated with the first kiss with an almost desperate eagerness, but shied away from the second one. “Not in public, please,” he whispered, looking around them.

“Who gives a fuck? We’re not in Reynolds’ America _now_ ,” Curt pointed out.

“No, we’re in Thatcher’s Britain, and that’s not much better,” Arthur replied. “Besides, my mum’s watching.”

Curt sighed. “All right, all right, I’ll make allowances for your mother.” He was _not_ going to stop just because a bunch of stodgy English prigs were watching. They used to _love_ watching him kiss Brian, after all.

Arthur led Curt to the table and they both sat down. “Mum, this is Curt,” Arthur explained. Surely unnecessarily, unless he thought his mother expected him to start making out with random strangers.

“Ah…nice to meet you…?” Arthur’s mother looked pretty old—though Curt wasn’t sure _how_ old, since judging the age of old ladies was not a skill he had or wanted—and definitely looked uncomfortable to be anywhere near him.

“Yeah.”

An awkward silence followed, broken by a waiter coming over to ask if Curt wanted to order anything. He wasn’t hungry, but he did order a beer to drink while Arthur and his mother finished their meals. After the waiter was gone again, Arthur’s mother tried to smile at Curt, though it made her look more scared than pleasant. “So…Arthur tells me you’re a musician…?”

“That’s one way of putting it.” Idly, Curt wondered if that was how Arthur had put it, or if that was his mother reinterpreting to make things more palatable to her old-fashioned ideals.

“Is that how you make a living in Berlin? Do you play in cabarets?”

Did she think it was the 1930s? “I’ve only been in Berlin a couple days,” Curt said, shaking his head. “Haven’t started thinking about earning dough yet. Playing some gigs is a good idea, though. We used to do a lot of that back in the ‘70s.”

“Are there many cabarets in Berlin?”

“Uh, not in the Joel Gray sense…” Arthur let out a burst of self-conscious laughter, but his mother looked confused. “I’d be playing in night clubs,” Curt went on, shaking his head. “Different kind of crowd.” And absolutely no Nazis. Though there weren’t any of those in Germany anymore anyway; they all lived in the US now.

Arthur’s mother nodded uncomfortably, glanced over at her son, and then looked back at Curt. “How did you meet my Arthur?” she asked. “He wouldn’t say.”

“Mum, please, don’t—”

“At a concert,” Curt answered. So long as they could avoid saying _when_ the concert was, who cared?

Arthur’s mother looked at him reprovingly. “You said you write about politics.”

“I said I _usually_ write about politics,” Arthur sighed. “The ‘ _Erald_ is a small paper. Everyone has to take on unpleasant, time-wasting stories now and then. Including the occasional review of a concert.”

“And you went backstage afterwards…? That seems very inappropriate.” She shot Curt a disgusted glance that was so quick he was sure he was supposed to have missed it.

“No, Mum, Curt wasn’t performin’. He was in the audience, too.”

For some reason, that made her look confused, but she dropped the subject, and was soon asking Arthur if it was _really_ necessary for him to move to Berlin. “After all, you don’t speak a word of German! You never even made good marks in French.”

“Mum, Curt doesn’t need to know that,” Arthur whimpered, almost whining on the first word. “It’s not necessarily long-term. We might only stay there a year or so. Besides, I’ll be able to get a job with an English-language paper. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure Nigel could put in a good word for you with his boss at the bank.”

“I am not working at a bloody bank,” Arthur said, his eyes narrowing. “And I doubt Nigel would ever use any good words to discuss _me_. We never got along, even before he learned I was…different…than he was.”

“Don’t you want to meet the baby?” Arthur’s mother asked, making Curt feel like he wasn’t even at the table. Why the fuck were they having a conversation that didn’t involve him when he was sitting right there?

“No, I don’t. I feel sorry for him, being raised by Nigel, but I don’t see any reason to meet him,” Arthur said, very firmly. “I’m going to Berlin. There’d ‘ave been no point in leaving my job in New York if I stayed here instead of goin’ with Curt,” he added, reaching over to hold Curt’s hand.

Arthur’s mother looked at Curt with a vexed expression. “I just don’t understand it,” she announced. “I can’t see any of it. I thought you said he was attractive,” she added, looking back at Arthur.

“What the—” Curt started, but he was soon cut off by Arthur’s laughter.

“Well, _I_ think he’s extremely handsome,” Arthur told her. “And I know there are a lot of women who agree with me.” His grip on Curt’s hand tightened. “That always makes me rather nervous, honestly.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Curt assured him. “There’s no way a woman could be as sexy as you are.”

An uncomfortable noise escaped from Arthur’s mother. Curt wasn’t sure what to call it—certainly not a gasp, but not really a whimper or a sigh of disgust—but he knew what it meant. She really couldn’t stand the very idea that a man wanted to have sex with her son. So much for Arthur’s claim that she was tolerant of his sexuality.

As the waiter brought his beer, Curt realized this was going to be a very long meal, even if it was only ten more minutes before they could finally say goodbye to the old woman and retire upstairs for some beautiful sex.

He probably should have ordered something to eat.


	10. Chapter 10

Arthur was woken by the sound of a ringing telephone. What a miserable way to wake up! He should have slowly been eased into consciousness, with full time to revel in the glory that was the feeling of Curt’s arm draped across his waist, and the warmth of Curt’s body pressed up close behind his own. Instead, he had no choice but to stretch his own arm over to lift the telephone receiver, bringing it to his face. “Hello?”

“This is the front desk,” a woman’s voice said. Some thin part of Arthur’s mind recognised it as the voice of the woman who had checked him in. God, had _that_ been awkward! Trying to explain why he was taking a hotel room in what was obviously his home town instead of staying with family or friends…

“Is something wrong?”

“Ah, no, not precisely. But when you checked in, you said you might be checking out today,” the woman at the desk said. “If you _are_ checking out, you only have ten minutes to do so without being charged for another night.”

“Oh.” He’d been woken for _that_? Really? “Guess we’re stayin’ another night, then.”

“All right, then. Sorry to have disturbed you.” The woman downstairs hung up the phone, and Arthur quickly did likewise.

“Wha wazzat?” Curt slurred behind him.

“Front desk,” Arthur explained, rolling over to give him a smile and a brief kiss. “They just wanted to know if we were checkin’ out.”

Curt grunted, and his eyes slid shut again. Arthur had almost a minute to study the patterns of the thin, pale stubble on Curt’s chin before Curt’s arms drew him too close to see anything. Arthur shut his eyes, delighting in the sensations of finally sharing a proper bed with Curt, and the thrilling knowledge that he was going to keep sharing a bed with him for the foreseeable future. After a while, he drifted back off to sleep, dreaming of their next love-making, and of what he would see when they arrived in Berlin.

His dream turned out to be very different from reality, right from the very start.

Arthur had rather assumed that Curt had come to England in an airplane of some sort, yet when they arrived at the airport, he was astonished to find a helicopter waiting for them instead. He was further surprised to realise that Curt’s ex-military ex-boyfriend was German, not American. Thankfully, it was a large helicopter, so the ride to Berlin wasn’t particularly uncomfortable, except for Arthur’s general (and likely highly unreasonable) fear that the East Germans might decide it was a military helicopter and shoot it down.

From the airport in West Berlin, they took a taxi to their destination. Curt gave the driver the address in very good German, surprising Arthur yet again. “You actually speak German?”

“Some,” Curt said, with a shrug. “I was here most of 1974. You pick things up after that long. Besides, it’s a lot like English. Way easier than French.”

“You speak French, too?” Was Arthur that foolish, or was Curt just hiding the fact that he was actually highly educated?

“Fuck, no!” Curt laughed. “Brian tried to teach me, though. When we were touring France. Mostly just taught me a few stock phrases he thought I should know.” Curt grimaced. “Mandy thought my accent was fucking hilarious, but the French looked like they wanted to strangle me the first time I butchered their language in front of them.” A weak grin. “There wasn’t a second time.”

“Glad to hear it,” Arthur chuckled, leaning in closer. “You’ll ‘ave to help me with German, though, if you’re so good at it.”

“I’m not really qualified to teach, but I’ll try to help if I can.” Curt smiled at him, and ran the fingers of one hand through Arthur’s hair. “Though I’d rather keep you all to myself so you won’t need to know any.”

“That sounds good, too,” Arthur said, fighting to keep control of himself. The urge to laugh nervously, or just lose himself in a childish grin was overpowering. Was he really here? Had he really run away to a foreign country with Curt Wild? It all felt like a dream, somehow.

They rode on in silence for a few minutes, until the buildings began to get bigger and further apart. “Hey, we’re getting close,” Curt said. “Wait ‘til you see this place.”

“Are we comin’ up on a park?” Arthur asked. The buildings had stopped suddenly, but he knew there wasn’t any countryside to see: the Berlin Wall would stop them from getting to any open country.

“No, not really. I guess it looks that way from here, though,” Curt chuckled. “There’s more houses, you just can’t see ‘em beyond the trees. Anyway, where we’re gonna be staying, it used to belong to a king or a duke or something.”

“Um…which one?” There was an enormous difference between the manor house of a duke and a palace that once belonged to the Kaiser.

“Dunno. Never asked.” Curt just shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. How could it not matter?

They soon came in view of the place. It was a magnificent manor house, but the architecture was more Rococo than anything Arthur would ever expect to see in Germany. Either it was the former vacation home of a French noble, or its new owner had redone the outside quite heavily. As it had probably taken a lot of damage during the war, the latter seemed more likely. Or perhaps it had been entirely built after the war, and the king/duke story was a simple fiction that had taken Curt in.

The cab driver let them out in front of the house, and Curt opened the door with a key, rather than ringing a bell. “We’re staying in the north wing,” he told Arthur as he closed the door behind them.

“And our host lives in the south wing?” Arthur surmised.

“Yeah. The kitchen’s in back of the entry hall here, and the studio’s upstairs.”

“Studio? A recording studio?”

Curt laughed. “I forgot to tell you, didn’t I?”

“Tell me what?”

“Put your bag down a minute.”

“What? Why?” Arthur asked, even as he did as he was told.

Curt took his hand. “C’mon, I’ll introduce you before we head off to bed.”

“Okay…?”

Arthur trailed along in confusion as Curt led him up the enormous central staircase to the first floor. They passed through the booth of a recording studio, and into a narrow hallway, along which wafted the scent of fresh paint. The hall opened into a massive room—a former ballroom, by the look of it—that was filled with paintings, unused canvases, and sculptures of metal or clay. Towards the wall of windows, Arthur saw a slender figure in the process of applying paint to a canvas.

“Hey, I’m back from England,” Curt announced as they drew near. “Wanted to introduce you two.”

Their host set down his paintbrush, and picked up a rag, wiping his hands clean of any paint. By the time he set down the rag again and turned around, Curt had pulled him close enough that Arthur could see in unmistakable detail the face of Jack Fairy.

“This is Arthur,” Curt told him. Jack Fairy smiled, and extended a hand towards Arthur. “And you know Jack, right?”

“Uh…yeah…” Arthur nervously took Jack’s hand and shook it, not even sure that was the right thing to do. How in the world had Curt failed to mention that the house they’d be staying in belonged to _Jack Fairy_?

After a bit more awkward introduction, Curt was soon leading Arthur back out to get his bag, so they could head off to their bedroom. They were halfway through the hall of the north wing by the time Arthur felt recovered enough to ask any questions. “Why has Jack Fairy taken up painting?” he asked, finding it somehow an easier question to ask than any of the more important ones.

Curt shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”

Somehow, that was both so typical and so frustrating that Arthur wasn’t able to ask anything else until they arrived in their bedroom. It was a nice room, about three times the size of Arthur’s flat in New York, decorated in a classy, modern style, all blocks of solid colour, mostly black and white, marred here and there by Curt’s dirty laundry, which was already sprinkled about the floor, as if he was using it to mark his territory.

Curt took the bag out of Arthur’s hands, and set it down next to the dresser. “You wanna unpack now, or do you wanna fuck first?”

Arthur laughed. “Do you really need to ask?” He leaned in for a deep kiss to make sure that asking wouldn’t be necessary…

***

Curt was actually already awake when the phone rang. He never slept as well when he was the front spoon for some reason. Besides, he had a lot on his mind right now. They’d been in Berlin long enough that Arthur was starting to make noises about looking for a job. Yeah, that had been the plan—sort of—but there was something frustrating about the idea that Curt wasn’t enough to keep the man’s attention for more than a few weeks. Realistically, he knew it was best if Arthur _did_ get a job; all that uninterrupted time together had probably been what soured his relationship with Brian, after all. Still, he’d have liked at least a month of nothing but talking, cuddling and fucking before losing Arthur to the outside world. After all, he might meet someone at work that he liked more than Curt!

At first, nothing happened after the phone rang. It stopped ringing quickly enough that it didn’t even wake Arthur, and then the house was silent for about five, maybe ten minutes before the footsteps sounded in the hall. The door slipped open quietly, and Jack stepped through. He smiled at Curt, and silently indicated the phone.

Grimacing, Curt tried to pick it up without waking Arthur, but he couldn’t even reach the thing without moving to the edge of the bed. By the time he picked it up, Jack had already left again. “Yeah?’

A deep sigh came across the line. “I don’t even know where to start.” Mandy’s voice followed up the sigh, sounding disappointed.

“You do know there’s a time difference, right? I was totally fucking sound asleep,” Curt lied.

“Curt, I know all about the time difference, and it’s the middle of the afternoon there.”

Curt coughed uncomfortably. It _did_ seem pretty bright in the room… “Can I help it if I get tired after good sex?”

“I really don’t care _why_ you’re in bed in the middle of the afternoon,” Mandy said, her voice curling up in distaste. “Do you have any idea what’s going on here?”

“Nah, I haven’t seen a paper in a couple of days. Why? Reynolds do something shittier than usual?”

“According to one of the New York papers, you and that reporter who was looking for Brian back in February have been murdered.”

A sound that was half laughter and half a cough came out of Curt’s lips unbidden. He tried to answer her, but the laughter took over, and he couldn’t say anything.

“What’s so funny?” Arthur asked from the other side of the bed.

“That guy back in New York may have been a little over-enthusiastic,” Curt told him.

“What? Who? What’s goin’ on? Who are you talking to?”

“Is that him?” Mandy asked through the phone. “What, you ran away with him?”

“Shit, I can’t fucking answer two sets of questions at once!” Curt exclaimed. “C’mon, I just woke up here!”

“Maybe he’s more alert than you are,” Mandy’s voice suggested snidely. “Hand the phone over to him.” A tone of order that Curt had rarely ever heard from her, and never directed at him before.

“Sorry about this,” Curt muttered as he obeyed. Better not to argue with her when she sounded so pissed off.

“Hello?” Arthur sounded even more worried than he looked. He listened for some time, looking more sheepish the longer Mandy spoke to him. “I’m sorry, Ms. Slade,” he said. Weirdly polite, considering it was just Mandy. “I didn’t know he’d take it that far.” Arthur bit his lip a moment. “How is Brian reactin’?”

Brian…? “Give me the phone back,” Curt said, as he took it away.

“—on’t know. He hasn’t said anything publicly,” Mandy was saying as Curt put the phone to his ear again.

“Call him,” Curt told her.

“Curt? When did you get back on the line?”

“Did you hear me? I said ‘call him.’ Explain it to him,” Curt said, averting his eyes from the betrayed look on Arthur’s face.

“Why?” The dripping suspicion in Mandy’s voice _might_ have been caused by the transatlantic connection, but probably not.

“If I don’t personally arrange that he find out that I’m not dead, then I’ll be no better than he was ten years ago,” Curt explained. “Doesn’t matter that I didn’t intend this to happen and he _planned_ the whole fucking thing. He has to be the _first_ person I tell that I’m not dead.”

“Do you really think he even cares?”

“No,” Curt admitted, “I’m sure he doesn’t give a shit. And I don’t even _want_ him to care.” At least, he didn’t want to think that he wanted that. “I just wanna prove I’m better than he is.”

“I think there are better ways you can go about that,” Mandy sighed.

“Yeah, I know. And I’ll do those, too. Uh, some of ‘em. Well, one of ‘em.”

Mandy laughed. “What _are_ you driveling about, Curt?”

“I just mean I’m not gonna wait for someone else to realize I’m not dead. We’ll hold a press conference as soon as we can set one up, okay? Let the world know this is a misunderstanding, and we’re not responsible for it.” Curt glanced over as Arthur twitched. “Well, that we didn’t intend it to happen quite like this,” he corrected. Arthur still looked a bit guilty, but not quite as much so. “Look, you just call Brian, and we’ll handle the rest, all right?”

With a little more coercion, Mandy finally accepted that, and hung up again.

“How are you planning to handle a press conference?” Arthur asked, as Curt returned the phone to its cradle. “Without a manager to set it up…”

Curt shrugged. “You’ve been wanting to talk to the editor at the ex-pat paper. Now’s the perfect time, yeah?”

Arthur chuckled. “I suppose it is,” he agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair (and likely obvious) admission of the truth: I did no research whatsoever into whether such mansions would have been present in West Berlin in 1984. If they were not, please laugh it off as part of the fantasy.


	11. Chapter 11

West Berlin’s sole English-language paper had its headquarters inside a large, concrete-block of a building. Not as bad as the Soviet architecture on the other side of the Wall, but far from appealing. Inside, however, the building hummed with a pleasing activity that reminded Arthur of much better New York papers than the _Herald_.

He and Curt walked over to a receptionist’s desk in the lobby. She looked at them curiously. “Can I help you, sirs?” she asked, through a heavy German accent.

“Yeah, we wanna talk to the editor,” Curt told her.

“Who shall I tell him is calling?”

Curt gave her their names, and the receptionist asked them to have a seat while she called the editor. She was already ringing him up by the time they sat down, and didn’t spend long talking to him before hanging up and calling them back over. The receptionist gave them the expected instructions, and within five minutes of entering the building, they were already stepping through the door of the editor’s office.

He looked at them from his cluttered desk with a wry smile. “Not every day I’m called on by a pair of dead men,” he said, shaking his head. “Here to do a report on the Other Side?”

Arthur cleared his throat uncomfortably. “We wanted to clear up the misunderstanding…”

“Why here?” the editor asked. “It isn’t as though anyone outside of Berlin reads our paper.”

“You can set up a press conference for us, right?” Curt asked.

“I could. Why should I bother?”

“No matter how much gets said at the press conference, it won’t be the ‘ole story,” Arthur pointed out. “Can’t be. If you help us get it set up, I’ll write up the full story for you, an exclusive. And I won’t ask any compensation when you sell it to papers in the rest of the world.” He allowed himself a small smile. “Except maybe a job.”

The editor frowned. “I’m not about to offer that without knowing what your story is, and how good your work is. Depending on those factors, I’m willing to consider it.”

“Fair enough,” Arthur agreed.

“So, you’re gonna help us, right?” Curt asked.

A resigned sigh. “I’m not sure how much choice I have.” Of course he had no choice: if he refused, Arthur would send his story elsewhere, and there would go that exclusive, and all the profits of selling it all over the world. Realistically, it wouldn’t be that hard for them to set up a press conference without his help: all they would need would be a translator to talk to someone in charge at a local television station. No, they wouldn’t even need that; Curt might not have been fully fluent in German, but he certainly spoke enough to be able to get a television crew to assist him with such an important exclusive.

“May I see the article that spread the story we were dead?” Arthur asked. “So we’ll know exactly what we need to say at the press conference.”

“I only have the Reuters version,” the editor said, pulling a page off his desk and handing it to Arthur. The text took up about a quarter of the page.

Arthur scanned the text briefly. “There’s no mention of Tommy Stone,” he told Curt.

“Shit, really?” Curt took the paper from him and looked at it himself.

“Why would it mention Tommy Stone?” the editor asked, looking at them as if they were both mental.

“I thought you said you told him,” Curt said, lowering the page again.

“I said I gave him hints,” Arthur corrected. “I couldn’t do more than that without it being potentially dangerous.”

“What does this have to do with Tommy Stone?” the editor repeated.

Arthur smiled uncomfortably, unsure if it was wise to answer that question before the press conference. The man _was_ an American, after all…

Curt had no such concerns, apparently, because he explained the truth of the matter with an unconcerned simplicity that left Arthur agog. Was he really feeling _that_ secure, just because they had gotten out of the United States?

At least it had the desired effect, leaving the editor temporarily as stunned as Arthur was. When he recovered, he immediately agreed to their terms, and set about arranging the press conference with such rapidity that they found themselves standing before a small army of television cameras and German journalists before Arthur really felt like he had even recovered his breath.

“I get that you’re all confused by this,” Curt said into the microphone, “but we were as surprised by the story as you are.”

“Not quite _as_ surprised,” Arthur corrected, moving up beside him. “I’m afraid this is all my fault. I set up a—a safety net, I suppose you’d call it. Long before we decided to leave the country. I hadn’t expected it to go off in quite this manner, however.”

A fair number of voices started shouting questions in English, though many were so heavily accented that Arthur had trouble understanding them. “Wait ‘til we’re finished before you start shouting questions!” Curt bellowed at them through the microphone. “Over the last four years, I’ve lost more and more of my freedoms,” he said, after they quieted down again. “I know a secret, and they want to keep it quiet. The fact that they were tapping my phone lines and following me around didn’t bother me so much as that they would hassle anyone I wanted to date. Just talking to someone for too long could land the other person in an interrogation cell. And if the other person was a reporter?” Curt shook his head. “I’ll be honest that I was afraid to find out what they’d do.” He looked over at Arthur with a gentle smile. “We had to meet in secret. If they knew I was fucking a reporter, they’d probably have killed us both.”

The crowd seemed to be growing restless, so Arthur set a hand on Curt’s arm, a pre-arranged signal that he wanted to take over the talking for a while. “After we were seen together by a colleague of mine, I arranged the safety net I mentioned earlier. If either of us disappeared, he was supposed to publish a story exposing the secret Curt was bein’ harassed over.” Arthur smiled weakly. “I only left him with hints, thinking he could figure it out from there. Evidently, I was mistaken.” He shook his head. “When we decided to leave the country so we could be together without ‘aving to hide anything, I—we were _both_ careful to make it look like we intended to come back. This wasn’t being done to fool my colleague, but to fool Curt’s tormentors. Fooling my colleague as well was to be a bonus, exposing their intentions without risk to ourselves—hopefully without risk to _anyone_. But it seems he wasn’t able to figure out the secret, or he perhaps he misunderstood what I was asking him. I don’t know. But it was never either of our intention to make the world think us dead.”

The questions resumed as Arthur stopped talking, but one question was repeated endlessly. They all wanted to know just what the deadly secret was.

Curt laughed bitterly. “The secret? Nothing worth a man’s life. They knew I’d recognise Brian Slade no matter what he did to himself, and they couldn’t have me telling anyone how he had reinvented himself.” A grim smile, almost a rictus grin. “They didn’t want anyone to know that their conservative lapdog Tommy Stone used to be the symbol of bisexual rebellion.”

The room erupted into a cacophony of voices.

***

The twenty-four hours after the press conference weren’t fun ones. As soon as the press conference ended, they went straight back to Jack’s place, and Arthur immediately disappeared into his work. Said he wanted to have the article he’d promised ready for tomorrow’s paper. So he was busy all fucking day, and all Curt could do was hang out with Jack, watching him paint until Curt got bored of the silence and went to the recording studio to play his guitar. It would have been nice if he could come up with a new song, but he still wasn’t feeling anything new. The stress needed to unwind first, or something.

Even after Arthur finished the article, it still dominated their evening. First, he wanted Curt and Jack both to read the damn thing, looking for errors. That wasn’t _too_ bad the first time, but then he wanted them to read it _again_ after he had fixed everything they had pointed out. How many times did he think Curt would want to read a story he had already lived? And sending it off to the paper didn’t help much, because then Arthur started fretting that it had been written in too much of a hurry and that it was terrible. About the only thing Curt could do to make him calm down was to fuck him, and even that only produced temporary results, because Arthur’s worries returned with reinforcements as soon as they got up in the morning.

When the phone rang, Arthur hurried to answer it, and soon looked crestfallen by what he was hearing from the other end. “I, uh, I’ll ask Curt what he thinks,” he said, after a few minutes, then covered the mouthpiece as he turned to look at Curt. “The BBC sent a camera crew. They want to interview us.”

“And?”

“Do you want to let them?”

Curt sighed. “What do _you_ want?”

Arthur shrugged. “I’m of two minds, really,” he admitted.

Curt frowned. “It’s probably better to do it. If we don’t wanna talk to anyone, it’s gonna look like we were lying. You know ol’ ‘Tommy’ is probably denying his head off right about now.”

“That’s true,” Arthur agreed, with a reluctance that suggested his actual preference had been to tell the BBC to fuck off. But then he spoke into the phone again and told the guy on the other end that they’d do it.

The interview was set up to take place so soon after that Curt had a feeling they had stopped at one of the neighbor’s houses to call and make the arrangements. They set up to record the interview in a small parlor near the entry hall, despite Curt’s preference for the recording studio. The parlor—like a lot of the rooms in Jack’s palace—was much too Brian to be an appropriate setting for an interview _now_. No one else seemed aware of that, or they didn’t care if they were. Probably no one but Arthur saw it, if even _he_ did.

Of course, the interview started with a full run-down of what had happened to turn Brian into Tommy Stone. At least, as full a run-down as Curt could give, which wasn’t very. It wasn’t as though they’d been on speaking terms when it happened. But he could—and had no choice but to—give a very clear description of what had happened the first time he encountered a recording of Tommy Stone, and what that had felt like, recognizing Brian inside that hollow, corrupt shell. Then, as if that hadn’t been torture enough, the interviewer insisted on forcing them to repeat the entire story of their time together in New York, in far more detail than they had given at their press conference, or even in Arthur’s article.

The interviewer nodded several times when their story was done, then looked sharply at Curt. “What about your former relationship with Brian Slade?” he asked.

“Huh? What about it?” What the fuck did that have to do with anything?

“Would you say you’ve gotten over it, and that’s why you sought out a new lover?”

“That’s a pretty shitty thing to ask right in front of the new lover,” Curt growled.

Arthur, though, chuckled. “Better in front of me than behind my back.”

Curt grimaced. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said, though he didn’t really see how that made it any better. It was a shit question regardless of Arthur’s relative position. Curt focused his gaze firmly on the asshole interviewer before continuing. “Look, what Brian and I had was special. A once-in-a-lifetime kind of affair. You never completely get over something like that, but when it’s _that_ over, you put it behind you, try not to think about it if you don’t have to. I’ll always love who Brian was back then, but that person’s gone for good, so it doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m not gonna let that stop me from getting involved with someone new.”

“So this new affair doesn’t compare to the one with Brian Slade, then,” the interviewer said, tapping the pad he’d been using to take notes on (despite the running cameras).

“Okay, I was wrong before. _That_ was a really fucking shitty thing to ask,” Curt said, trying not to snarl enough to obscure his words. “Do you do that to straight couples, too? Demand that they compare each other to their past lovers, right in front of each other?”

“Er…”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

The interviewer cleared his throat uncomfortably, and picked up a typed page of notes, then looked at Arthur. “You said—in both the press conference and in your written statement—that the man who wrote the article in New York was aware of the relationship between the two of you?”

“Yes, he—” Arthur stopped his answer almost immediately, jabbing Curt’s leg under the table, as if it was Curt’s fault he found the question hilarious. The fucker had been jacking off to listening in on them fucking. Of _course_ he knew about them! “He saw us bein’ affectionate with each other.” Understatement of the fucking century.

“He made no mention of that in his article,” the man from the BBC said, displaying a copy of the New York paper. Arthur took the paper from him, staring down at it with intensity. Curt didn’t do much more than glance at it. The photos of the two of them on the front page provoked an instant scowl: Arthur’s photo was hideous, probably an ID photo, and Curt’s was ten fucking years old. “From reading the article, in fact, I doubt anyone would have imagined the two of you could ever have been involved.”

“Why?” Curt asked. “Did it claim Arthur was straight or something?”

“His sexuality wasn’t addressed, but it did say that all his co-workers described him as, quote, conservative in all but politics, end-quote. Where does the discrepancy lie in that?”

Arthur laughed weakly as he returned the newspaper. “That’s a bit…harder to explain.” Biting his lip, he glanced over at Curt for a moment, as if seeking guidance, but then looked away again before Curt could begin to guess what he should do to provide any help. “My co-workers didn’t really know me very well. No one in America did.” He shook his head. “They knew I preferred the music of the early ‘70s to modern music, but not one of them would ‘ave ever believed it if someone had told them that I spent years as a glam groupie.” Somehow, Arthur had managed to leave that detail out of both their press conference and his article. But Curt had—evidently mistakenly—assumed that was to protect him from any belated legal repercussions for the rooftop sex he didn’t even remember, since Arthur had been underage by British law at the time.

The interviewer laughed. “It certainly doesn’t show,” he agreed, “but under the circumstances, it becomes much more believable,” he added, with a not-so-subtle glance at Curt. “Why hide it now, though? Are you ashamed of it?”

Arthur grinned. “I knew a man once who said that if a man wasn’t ashamed of what he’d done as a teenager, then he’d wasted his teenage years.” Curt had to laugh at that. What a great definition of being a teenager! Though in Curt’s case, that went on to cover his twenties, too, and a good chunk of his thirties… “A bit extreme, as any generalization is, but there’s a good point to it. Things that seem like the right thing, the best thing, when you’re a teenager don’t always sound good by ten years later. I don’t regret my past, but I don’t really feel connected to it anymore.” After a slight pause, he reached over and took Curt’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “Though I feel more connected to it now than I did six months ago,” he added.

“Then it was shame that motivated you to hide your past from your friends and co-workers?” the interviewer concluded.

“No, that’s not it,” Arthur insisted. “Everyone’s ashamed of the things he did as a teenager, like I said. There’s no need to hide it, because everyone understands that you just don’t think normally until you’re in your twenties. I hid it from everyone—even my New York boyfriends—because I knew they wouldn’t understand it, and that they would treat me differently because of it. Not just different, but worse. Even at the time, glam was far from being the norm.”

“That’s true,” the interviewer agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, sorry about the abrupt ending to this chapter! Sometimes (as you've probably noticed if you've read any of my other fics) I get into a long conversation in a scene and it just rambles on and on forever, until I find myself with no choice but to pull the plug on the scene. (This especially seems to happen with press conferences and interviews...which is a real problem when one of your main characters is a journalist!) I think in this case, it was more that I was so stymied by what could possibly come next (particularly without yet more retreading of the same ground that's been covered ad nauseum already) that I just decided to move on, since the main purpose of the scene had already been fulfilled.


	12. Chapter 12

Arthur’s article had been better received than it really deserved—no matter how much he’d have liked it to be otherwise, he knew perfectly well that it had been rubbish, and he could have done so much better if he’d only had another day or two to work on it—and so the editor had offered him a position. It didn’t feel like the editor—or the rest of the staff—wanted him there, though, so he couldn’t be certain that he’d have the job for long. By the time he’d been on the job for three days, he was already feeling stressed out by the sheer out-of-place nature of himself in that office.

That was why he wanted to spend the evening sitting cuddled up with Curt on the couch, watching some romantic old movie on the telly. Curt was all for that—once Arthur assured him repeatedly that there would be copious sex afterwards—but there was some debate, naturally, over what movie to watch. And if they’d had that discussion _before_ turning on the television, they might have actually gotten to watch one.

Because while they were still looking over Jack’s video cassette library—not to mention his laser discs!—the German news programme began to air a press conference that had been recorded that morning in New York. As soon as the German announcer said the name “Tommy Stone,” they had stopped their discussion and sat down to watch it. Because when Brian Slade spoke, his followers listened. Even now.

“I regret that this is required of me,” Tommy started out by saying, huge German subtitles running across the bottom half the screen as he spoke, “but I’ve waited long enough that it feels necessary.”

Arthur bit his lip not to say anything and interrupt the recording, worried how Curt might react to the interruption. If this was a denial, why had he waited almost a week? Or was he finally confessing to the truth?

“I know the world was shocked to see this article last week,” Tommy said, lifting a newspaper. The photos on the front page made it unmistakable: it was the article claiming that Curt and Arthur were dead. “I, too, was horrified to read it. This isn’t well known, but once, many years ago, Curt Wild and I were very close.” Curt made an uncomfortable noise beside Arthur, but Arthur was afraid to look over at him to get an idea of what the noise meant. It wasn’t a derisive noise, so was it pain? Was that how much Curt still regretted his break-up with Brian? “I was…someone else then. I’ve reclaimed myself from the mess I was when Curt and I were friends. I’m ashamed to admit that drugs were involved, but I will never claim that it was only due to the drugs that we became so close.” A small, pained smile crossed Tommy’s lips, as if to say that he, too, still regretted their break-up. “It would not be amiss to say that the drugs were the reason our friendship ended, and we went our separate ways.”

“Not how I remember it,” Curt grumbled. Arthur clasped his hand warmly—the only thing he could think to do to help with the pain—and found his own hand squeezed back with an almost desperate tightness.

“When I read this article, I believed it as much as everyone else in this room,” Tommy went on, “but unlike the rest of you, I blamed myself for it.”

Curt’s grip on Arthur’s hand loosened. “Shit…” he murmured.

“When I first met with President Reynolds about becoming a spokesman for the Committee for Cultural Renewal,” Tommy went on, “I was grilled by the Secret Service, to ensure that there was no risk to the president in our meeting, and to see if I would be a liability to the committee. In the course of that, I did, naturally, admit that I had once had a drug problem, but I was able to assure them that it was dealt with, and I had been clean for years. The committee and the president both agreed that this would not be an impediment to our working together, so long as no one ever found out about it.” He shut his eyes with a mournful expression. “I didn’t fully understand what that meant when I agreed to work with them.” Tommy opened his eyes again. “The committee took it upon themselves to protect my reputation by hiding all traces of my past. When I read this article, I had no doubts that it was true, and that Curt had been killed by the Committee for Cultural Renewal, in order to protect _me_.”

The audience in front of Tommy began to burst with questions and shocked murmuring, but Arthur felt a cold lump in his stomach. If Tommy was presenting this information _this morning_ and it was meeting with such a strong reaction, then…

“The fuck’s going on here?” Curt asked. “I already told them all this shit!”

Tommy resumed speaking before Arthur could give the obvious answer. “I was wrong, however,” he said, settling the crowd in front of him. “I was wrong,” he repeated, “because it _isn’t_ true. Curt Wild is still alive. When he learned about this article, he asked my ex-wife to call me and assure me that it wasn’t true.” A pained look spread over Tommy’s face. “He still thought enough of me, after all this time, after I’ve become someone so unlike the man he knew, that he didn’t want me to think he was dead, to waste time mourning the living.” Tommy shook his head. “She explained it to me just as Curt had explained it to her. As one of the people most keenly aware of my shameful past, Curt was being constantly monitored by the committee, to the extent that he couldn’t even pursue romantic relationships. He and this reporter are lovers, and they fled the country to be together.”

There were disgusted noises then. Reynolds’ America wasn’t going to get on board with that notion so easily. “I know how you feel,” Tommy assured them, raising a hand to quiet them, “and I feel the same way. But this is who Curt is—who he has always been—and if I didn’t judge him for it in the ‘70s, I won’t judge him for it now. We haven’t spoken in years, but I still wish him happiness, and if finds it with this fellow, then I’m glad of it.”

“Bet he wouldn’t be so supportive if we were right there in the room with him,” Curt grumbled as the room on the television screen was filled with shouted questions.

Eventually, one question won out over the others. “Why wait so long to tell us this?” the man asked. Arthur recognized him as a top man from the _Times_. “If you’ve known for almost a week, why didn’t you hold this press conference right away?”

“Because Mandy assured me that Curt was going to hold his own press conference and explain to the world himself,” Tommy answered.

“And he just nailed his own coffin,” Curt chuckled.

“Stress will make anyone choke,” Arthur agreed, trying to sound like he was fighting laughter, too. But he’d seen enough recorded interviews with Brian—and, for that matter, with Tommy—to know that he wasn’t a man easily stressed, and to make such a huge gaffe as to use Mandy’s name? The article must have been much more upsetting to him than he was letting on. Did he still love Curt after all this time? Was he going to try to take Curt back again, leaving Arthur miserably alone?

“I waited all this time to allow Curt to speak for himself,” Tommy went on, an answer that set Curt muttering under his breath about how he had never allowed Curt that privilege when they were together. “As he still has not done so, I assume something has gone wrong on his end in Berlin, and I can only hope that it was only a lack of cooperation from the German media, not something more serious.”

“How about American censorship?” Curt sighed. “Didn’t occur to me that they’d block the whole fucking thing…”

“It _should_ ‘ave occurred to me, but it didn’t,” Arthur agreed sadly.

They had talked over the next question, but Tommy’s answer made its basic thrust evident. “I didn’t just want to tell the world that Curt is still here,” Tommy said. “I mentioned the committee so prominently for a reason. This one newspaper article with scant evidence to suggest anything more than disappearance was enough to convince me thoroughly that they had been murdered by a branch of the United States government. More than anything else, this article brought to the front of my mind the certainty that I have allied myself with people who really would go as far as murder to cover up my youthful indiscretions.” Tommy shook his head. “I am the last person who would ever want the world to know what I did in the early ‘70s. I was barely able to tolerate the notion that a few people might be threatened to cover it up, because I accepted their word that it would rarely ever be needed, because so few people would realise the truth. But their methods have been such that I had no doubt that they really had committed murder. And not just any murder! The murder of one of my oldest, dearest friends. A broken friendship, but a sacred one that should be honoured and respected, even in pieces. And I did not doubt that they had killed him, because it was exactly the sort of thing that I have come to realise the committee is capable of.” Tommy shut his eyes sadly. “That is the other reason I wanted to hold this press conference. I wanted to tell the world that I am cutting my ties with the Committee for Cultural Renewal. I cannot be associated with their brutality any longer.”

The cacophony among the press on the screen neatly mirrored the turmoil in Arthur’s own mind. What did it mean that Tommy was ending his cooperation with the committee over this? Was it really the first step towards renewing his romance with Curt? What was Arthur supposed to do if that happened? Should he be selfish and fight to cling onto Curt as long as possible, or be mature and let Curt leave him?

“Man, is he gonna be pissed when he finds out I already told the world the whole truth,” Curt said, a low rumble in his voice.

“I thought that was the idea,” Arthur said, trying to chuckle.

“Yeah, but that was before this,” Curt sighed, gesturing to the television. The footage of the interview had stopped by now, and a photograph of Tommy at the podium took up about a quarter of the screen as the German newsreader was saying _something_. (Arthur couldn’t learn German fast enough to suit him.) “I didn’t think he was actually gonna be upset by the idea I’d been killed.”

“How could he not be?” How could _anyone_ not be? Maybe people who only knew Curt’s one-dimensional stage persona wouldn’t be terribly disturbed, but anyone who had known—even at only a glimpse—the _real_ Curt would have to be crushed by the idea of anything happening to such a wonderful, magical person. (Or maybe Arthur was biased…)

“He’s never exactly looked back,” Curt said, shaking his head.

“He did, you know.”

“What?” Curt looked at Arthur critically. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“He was at the Death of Glitter concert. Watchin’ you perform.” Arthur shook his head. “Left before your first song was finished, though.”

“He was?”

Arthur nodded. “Mandy saw him, but she didn’t tell you about it.” Neither did Arthur, though he had felt guilty about it the next day: his first foray into the selfish, jealous world of adults.

Curt looked back at the television, his lips pursing into a scowl. “That’s…” His voice trailed off after only one word, then he let out a deep sigh as the telly moved to commercials. “It’s probably for the best. If I’d known he was anywhere near there, I probably would have gone out looking for him.”

“I’m sure that’s what he wanted.” The mournful look on Brian’s face that night still haunted Arthur.

“Maybe.” Curt shrugged. “Woulda been the worst thing for me, hooking back up with him. Brian’s the most amazing man who ever lived, but…maybe it was just with me, but that was one fucking unhealthy relationship. One way or another, I’d probably be dead by now if we’d gotten back together.”

Arthur wasn’t sure what to say. He hardly knew what to feel. Did Curt really feel that way? If that was so, maybe he would refuse when Tommy tried to pick up where they left off ten years ago…

Curt sighed as he got to his feet. He had turned the television off before Arthur had really processed the fact that he had moved. “What…?” Arthur started, but had to stop, realising he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to ask.

“I’m calling Mandy. I wanna know what’s going on back in New York.”

“Ah. Good idea. I’d like to know, too.”

“Wanna go pick up one of the extensions?” Curt suggested.

Much as Arthur would have liked to watch Curt’s expressions during the conversation, hearing what Mandy had to say directly seemed the more important of the two, so Arthur hastily followed Curt’s suggestion. The phone was still ringing when he picked up.

“Hello?” Mandy’s voice sounded hoarse when she answered, far more than it had back in New York. Either she was chain smoking even more now than she had been in February, she was sick, or she’d been talking non-stop all day.

“Hey, Mandy,” Curt said.

Mandy let out a deep sigh. Arthur could practically _hear_ the cigarette smoke in it. “I was wondering if I’d hear from you. I’ve been thinking about it all day, but I still don’t know what to ask first.”

“They really censored the entire press conference?” Curt asked, removing the need for her to ask anything. “Not even us saying ‘hey, no, we’re not dead’ or anything?”

“There wasn’t a hint of it in any of the news media here,” Mandy assured him. “I’ve been terrified that a hit squad had flown all the way to Berlin and murdered all three of you.”

“Three?” Arthur repeated, despite himself.

“Jesus Christ!” Mandy screeched. “How many people are on this line!?”

Curt laughed. “Just the two of us,” he assured her. “Seriously, you thought they’d kill Jack, too?”

“Under these circumstances, I was afraid they would, yes.” She sighed again. “Brian said I was over-thinking things. He said it would be an act of war if they did that.”

“It could be taken that way,” Arthur agreed, “but I’m not sure that would stop them.”

“This is just getting stupid,” Curt grumbled. “We need to put an end to this shit.”

“That was what Brian tried to do this morning,” Mandy replied. “I mean, I’m assuming you did see his announcement?”

“We saw some of it,” Curt said. “I don’t think it was over when the German news cut it off.”

“Towards the end, he actually tried to come clean,” Mandy said. “Started trying to tell them everything. Someone asked him if he thought the committee had followed and killed you since I spoke to you. Curt, you should have seen it. Brian pretty much broke down in tears at the thought. I didn’t…I never realised how much you still mean to him.”

Curt’s end of the line was painfully silent. Arthur couldn’t take much of that, feeling it feeding his terrified certainty that Curt really was going to leave him to go back to Brian. “If he started telling the truth,” Arthur asked, to put an end to the silence, “what stopped him?”

“Shannon. She came out and interrupted, covering for how ‘Mr. Stone’ was very tired and upset. She practically dragged him out of the room.” A mirthless chuckle. “I suppose I can see her excuse, that his career wouldn’t recover from it, but…that was never why she did it.”

“Yeah, uh, Mandy, thing is…” Curt sighed. “America’s the only place that _doesn’t_ know now.”

Mandy laughed. “Really? You spilled his secret in your press conference? God, no wonder it was stifled here!”

“If we could get it on the air in America, that would ‘ave to help, wouldn’t it?” Arthur suggested. “At least the committee would back off following you around, yeah?”

“Yeah, but how are you going to do that? Knowing, as you must, that my phone line is almost certainly tapped.” Arthur had not known that.

“Obviously, we can’t tell you, or we’ll be telling them, too,” Curt chuckled. “I’m sure we can think of something, though.”

“I wonder if it matters?” Mandy sighed. “Maybe I should just move to England, let America rot.”

“Doesn’t seem very fair to everyone you’d be leaving behind,” Arthur pointed out.

Mandy chuckled. “Regular little Boy Scout, aren’t you?”

“He _is_ usually prepared for everything,” Curt laughed.

“Can we be serious, please?” This did not seem to be going in a good direction. And a call to New York from Berlin was hardly cheap. Though perhaps Jack Fairy had enough money that it didn’t matter, given where he was living. “How ‘ave people been reacting to Tommy’s statement?”

“Hard to say; it was only this morning. After the evening news, I’ll have a better idea about it,” Mandy said. “I did try turning on NPR to see if anyone was talking about it, though.”

“Were they?” Curt asked.

“Pretty much nonstop.” Mandy laughed, but it didn’t sound amused. “They get all types on there, so just listening for a few hours covered a stupidly large spectrum of responses. One reactionary-type demanded that Tommy should be charged with treason for accusing the president’s pet project of murder.”

“Even though that isn’t what he said?” Curt laughed.

“A middle-of-the-line programme insisted that we shouldn’t take anything Tommy had said too seriously, because he was still very upset over thinking his old friend was dead.” Mandy’s voice softened. “They didn’t accept his accusations in the least, but they certainly embraced the idea that the two of you had been friends. I haven’t heard anyone say such nice things about you since the ‘70s.”

“Should I be flattered or pissed off?”

Mandy laughed, much more brightly than before. “Probably both.”

“I suppose it would be asking too much for anyone to take it as a reason to start an investigation into the committee’s policies,” Arthur sighed.

“There was one liberal programme that suggested that,” Mandy assured him. “I don’t know if anyone in any position of power will agree, though.”

“As long as someone in the press takes it up, that should be enough,” Arthur said, feeling a twinge inside him. Writing a lengthy, in-depth series exposing the deep, dark secrets of the Committee for Cultural Renewal was exactly the sort of thing he had been itching for ever since becoming a journalist. But here he was on the other side of the world, unable to do a thing!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhat amusingly, the very first fic I wrote in this fandom (which I still haven't posted because it was so rife with problems even after ripping out a bunch of the worst scenes and replacing them with better ones) was exactly what Arthur was just thinking about at the end there: the main point of the fic was Arthur working up a tremendous article exposing all the Committee for Cultural Renewal's worst secrets. (And those secrets were worse than usual in that; it was pretty much literally a cult.)
> 
> Anyway, this chapter is the start of this fic's high water mark, in my mind. :) In part because I feel like this is maybe the best I've ever done in trying to reconcile the two halves of Brian/Tommy.


	13. Chapter 13

“Nice to see you again so soon, Ms. Slade,” the doorman said, smiling as he held the door open for her. “Mr. Stone left instructions that he didn’t want to see anyone, but I’m sure he didn’t mean you,” he added, with a wink. Mandy wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry that the staff all thought there was a whirlwind romance going on between her and the man they didn’t realize was her ex-husband.

“Have you had to turn many people away?” she asked as he shut the door behind her.

“There was a small crowd of reporters not long after he got home this morning, but it’s been quiet since then.”

As Mandy rode the now-familiar elevator up to the penthouse, she couldn’t help marveling at how much things could change in a week. Even she didn’t understand how it had happened. One phone call couldn’t undo nearly a decade of bad blood. But she’d been here every day since Curt had asked her to call Brian for him. Part of her felt guilty for not telling Curt that, but what if it had stirred up some strange jealousy in him? He was finally moving on, after ten years of moping over Brian. It wouldn’t be fair to do anything to ruin that.

It wasn’t until after she rang the bell that Mandy noticed something in the hall smelled a little bit off. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it made her uneasy, especially since she didn’t hear anyone coming to answer the door.

She tried knocking, and the door swung open at her touch.

The interior of the apartment was entirely wrecked. Furniture hadn’t just been upended, but shattered and ripped apart, as if someone was searching for gold hidden in every cushion. Pictures had been torn off the walls and smashed.

“Hello…?” Mandy took a tentative step inside the apartment, hardly able to speak out of fear that whoever did this was still in the apartment. A few more fearful steps brought her in view of a pair of legs, encased in white slacks.

“Brian!”

She ran over to kneel at his side, rolling him up into her lap. He’d been badly beaten; his face was blackened and swelling, and a cut in his lower lip had bled all down the front of his shirt. But a weak moan escaped his lips as she moved him. “Mandy…” he breathed as his eyes fluttered open.

“I’m here, Brian,” she assured him, gripping his hand tightly. “Who did this to you?”

He gestured her closer, and as Mandy leaned down towards his lips, he whispered two words: “The gas…”

Then that smell was…?

Mandy hurriedly got back to her feet and ran to the nearest window, opening it as far as she could. She opened each window in turn as she made her way to the kitchen. The gas smell nearly bowled her over when she opened the kitchen door: whoever had done this hadn’t turned on the gas in the stove, they had ripped the stove from the wall, letting the gas spurt out of it wildly and unstoppably.

Covering her nose and mouth with her shirt, Mandy rushed over and grabbed a towel off the dish rack, stuffing it into the pipe. It wouldn’t stop the gas, but it might slow it down a little. She opened the rest of the windows and the door that led onto the balcony before heading out of the apartment and taking the elevator back down to the ground floor.

Mandy pounded on the building manager’s door until he finally opened it. “Who are you?” the man demanded. “What’s the big idea?”

“You have access to the emergency switch-off for the gas, don’t you? You have to turn it off!”

“Just who the hell do you think you are? Why should I do that?”

“I’m Tommy Stone’s ex-wife, and I was just up in his apartment—someone’s looted the place, and broken the stove so it’s spewing gas!”

The manager sputtered a moment. “I’ll get right on it! There’s no one in there, is there?”

“I’m going to call an ambulance to get them,” Mandy assured him. “And I’ve opened the windows to let the gas out.”

As the manager hurried to the basement to switch off the gas, Mandy took the elevator back up to the penthouse. It didn’t smell much better in Brian’s apartment than it had when she left, so she dragged him out into the hallway—still using her shirt as a gas mask—then went back in to drag Shannon out, too. She hadn’t been hurt as badly—didn’t really look hurt at all, though based on the way she’d been lying, she’d probably been at least hit over the head—but she wasn’t regaining consciousness, even though Brian was weakly sitting up by the time Mandy got Shannon out and shut the door again.

Mandy crouched down beside Brian. “Are you—do you think you’re going to be okay?”

A weak, gurgling noise. “They’ll come back,” he muttered. “Finish the job.”

“Who did this?”

“Who do you think?” He laughed weakly. “What I get for working with people like that in the first place, I suppose.”

She sighed, settling down into a sitting position beside him. “It’s lucky Curt called when he did.”

“Curt called…?”

“Your announcement made the evening news in Berlin,” Mandy explained, with a chuckle. “Who would have thought Curt would ever be the type to watch the evening news?”

“Then he’s all right…”

“Yes, he’s fine,” Mandy assured him, holding Brian’s hand gently.

“Why didn’t he…ah…”

“He _did_ ,” Mandy sighed, then explained about the censorship, and the exposure of Brian’s secret to the rest of the world.

“I…I’m glad,” Brian said, with a weak attempt at a smile. “I should never have agreed to anything that would let people manipulate me.”

“How about it? You want one last big show out of this?” Mandy asked, suddenly coming up with a plan. “Make a big splash out of Tommy Stone’s farewell?”

Brian chuckled, though it quickly turned into wet coughs that had blood dribbling out of his mouth. “I do like to put on a show.”

“Leave it to me, love.” Mandy kissed one of the few un-bruised spots on his cheek before letting go of his hand and returning to the interior of the apartment. It smelled slightly less of gas in there now, but only slightly. Thankfully, the telephone nearest the door was on a long enough cord that she could carry it out into the hall—base and all—and close the door again behind her. “What’s the number to call down to the doorman?” she asked, looking at Brian.

“I can handle that much,” he sighed, holding out his hand towards her. “Check on Shannon for me.”

While Brian called down to tell the doorman that he no longer wanted privacy, and that the press were now quite welcome, Mandy knelt down by Shannon’s side. Her pulse seemed regular—as far as Mandy could tell—but she still wasn’t waking up. She probably had a concussion or something. The ambulance would bring people who knew what to do with her. But before that…

Mandy scowled at the door back into the toxic apartment as she stood up again. “I’ll have to go back in for a phone book,” she muttered, reaching for the door.

“Shannon should have all the numbers you need,” Brian told her. “There’s an address book on her desk.”

Shannon’s desk, unfortunately, was much deeper in the apartment than the phone book, and her address book not terribly easy to find, so even using her shirt as a gas mask Mandy was feeling a little light-headed by the time she got back out. She slumped down on the floor beside Brian to make the calls. The numbers in the notebook were all direct lines to exactly the right people, so at least it had been worth the risk of getting it: this was going to be much faster than it would have been with the phone book.

Mandy dialed the first number, and it was soon answered. “Action News, media division,” a bored-sounding receptionist said.

“Have I got a story for you!”

***

Arthur was halfway through writing his article on Tommy Stone’s announcement in New York—everyone else on staff had seen the news, too, of course, but the editor had given in to Arthur’s insistence on being the one to write the article—when the telephone rang. Curt answered it, but didn’t talk to the person on the other end for very long before bringing the receiver over to Arthur.

To Arthur’s surprise, it was Mandy Slade on the other end, letting them know about the murderous attack on Tommy Stone’s life by his own protectors. And about how they had used the live television coverage from his ruined apartment to tell the United States the truth about just why Mandy Slade was the one who stumbled on the scene before Tommy could succumb to the gas filling his flat.

As soon as she was done, Arthur had to go back up to the start of his article and change the lead. He could still use most of what he had already written, but there was no way he was burying a lead like the attempted murder of an international singing star. (A _genuine_ attempted murder this time!) That had to be where the story started. As he worked on the story, he tried not to notice that Curt was still on the phone talking to Mandy. Most of what he was saying was too quiet for Arthur to make out anyway. And he didn’t want to give himself time to worry about the repercussions this was going to have on his love life. He could worry about that after the story was written. That was the life of a journalist.

When he finished up the article, Arthur printed it out and called the editor to let him know it was done. Given the lateness of the hour, the editor decided to send a courier to pick up the print-out—and a floppy disk with a copy of the story on it—rather than have Arthur bring it by the office. (He probably assumed that as such a new arrival to Berlin, Arthur would get lost en route, unable to navigate the unfamiliar streets at night. And he was right that Arthur wouldn't have been able to get there by himself, but it wasn't as though a cabbie would get lost!) Only after the courier had come and gone did Arthur allow himself to sit down beside Curt and ask if he was okay.

“They tried to kill him,” Curt murmured, pulling Arthur close to him with shaking arms. “ _Really_ kill him. Because of me. Because of something _I_ did.”

“Don’t think that way,” Arthur said, stroking his back gently. The motion somehow helped him keep the tremor out of his voice. “They did it because of what _he_ did.”

“But he only tried to break away from them because of _me_ ,” Curt insisted, shaking his head. “It’s my fault.”

“It isn’t your fault, love. You’d never ‘ave had to run away and accidentally fool New York into thinking you were dead if he hadn’t signed on with those monsters in the first place.”

Curt pulled him closer, pressing his face down against Arthur’s shoulder. “But…”

“Don’t do this to yourself, Curt,” Arthur whispered, wrapping both arms tightly around him. “The only people to blame are the ones who attacked him. You didn’t do anything wrong.” If Curt kept untangling the sequence of events, he would keep finding ways to blame himself, until he finally decided that everything had been his fault, because none of it would ever have happened if he and Brian hadn’t broken up in the first place. Arthur couldn’t bear the idea of hearing Curt actively say he wished they were still together. This was painful enough as it was.

They must have spent hours sitting there like that—it felt like hours, at least—holding each other as Curt fought against tears. Arthur was soon fighting not to cry as well, seeing his whole future unfold before his eyes in a panoply of misery.

Curt would leave him, go back to New York. Of course he would. Brian was hurt—had nearly died—and would be asking for him, wanting him. So Curt would go. And he wouldn’t come back. As soon as he and Brian were together again, their old love would blossom once more, and Arthur would be forgotten, half the world away. As soon as it was clear that Curt wasn’t coming back, and that Arthur was no longer involved with him, Arthur would have nowhere to live: Jack Fairy was happy to share his home with Curt and his lover, but to allow a total stranger to share it would be unthinkable, so of course Arthur would be out on the street. He wouldn’t be able to go back to his old job in New York, because there was no way Lou would forgive him for any of what he had done: abandoning the paper in the middle of an election, letting them think him dead, none of it was the least bit forgivable. But he wouldn’t be of any use to his new paper, since he couldn’t go out following stories since he couldn't speak German. He’d be homeless and unemployed on the streets of an isolated city that didn’t speak English.

No, it wouldn’t be _that_ bad, Arthur forcibly reminded himself. He could call his mum, and she could wire him money for a plane ticket back to London. Ray would be glad to give him a bed to sleep in and a shoulder to cry on. And in London, Arthur would be able to find a job. Not another job as a journalist—his credibility had to be shot after he’d become the subject of such a stupid chain of stories—but in a city where he spoke the language, he could do any job they threw at him, even if it meant sweeping floors. He’d make it somehow.

But he’d never be the same again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, sorry about the awful place to end this chapter!
> 
> Also, yes, I know Mandy should have moved Tommy and Shannon out of the apartment before running down to ask the building manager to turn off the gas. But she's too panicked to be thinking clearly.


End file.
